Take a Little Ride

Album: Night Train (2012)
Charted: 12
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Songfacts®:

  • This fun-loving cut finds the song's protagonist taking a little ride in a truck with the one that he loves after a hard week's work. "Can't wait for the sun to go down. Roll into town. Shine the old truck up," Aldean sings. "I thought this would be a great lead single to come with after 'Fly Over States.' It's about grabbing your girl and getting lost in the country. Sounds like a pretty good Friday night to me!," he explained. The song was released on July 16, 2012.
  • The tune was penned by New Jersey native Dylan Altman (Jake Owen's "Barefoot Blue Jean Night"), Texan Rodney Clawson (Blake Shelton's Drink On It") and New Orleans-born Jim McCormick (Brantley Gilbert's "You Don't Know Her Like I Do").
  • The song debuted at #12 on the Hot 100. Its quick journey into the upper reaches of the chart earned Aldean his best ever arrival, overtaking the #54 start for "My Kinda Party" in 2009.
  • The first seven-days digital sales figure of 189,000 marked the largest debut sales week for a digital song by a male country artist bettering Scotty McCreery's "I Love You This Big," which launched with 171,000 in June 2011.
  • The song became Jason Aldean's eighth country #1 on the chart dated October 6, 2012. It climbed to the top in just its tenth week on the tally, the quickest ascent since Blake Shelton's "Honey Bee" also buzzed to the top in its 10th frame in June 2011.
  • Aldean told Billboard magazine he first heard the tune when recording his 2010 My Kinda Party set. "It came in on the last album, but we had all our tempos," he said. "I liked it, but we weren't looking for that type of song at that time. It was one of those songs that just kept hangin' around, and I was still listening to it two years later, still diggin' it. At that point it was time to put it on a record."
  • Many fans have wondered why Jason Aldean wants to borrow his lover's phone in the song. Turns out they misheard the "slide your pretty little self on over" lyric as "slide your pretty little cellphone over."

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