American Country Love Song

Album: American Love (2016)
Charted: 55
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Songfacts®:

  • The second single from Jake Owen's fourth album celebrates quintessential ideas of love. The singer explained:

    "'American Country Love Song' has the feeling of freedom and being young and adventurous. The first few lines of the song give examples of what love is: 'It's two tickets to a concert, it's a Daytona airbrush T-shirt, wonderin' who's gonna kiss who first. You know what I'm talking about.' I would say the majority of America does know what I'm talking about.

    The single is a broad-spectrum glance in a three-minute song that describes a couple of kids living that American country love song. But, it's also a much larger celebration of the love story that is America itself, from cowboys and cowgirls to cheerleaders and quarterbacks in small towns and big cities. It's the thought of, 'Hey, let's raise our glasses to the fact that we are all one [and] the same. Wherever you live in this country, we are basically living one big American country love song."
  • The song's music video shows Owen taking a road trip from Nashville, Tennessee to Key West, Florida on board his "Love Bus" - a pearly green 1966 Volkswagon Microbus. "The song is about feeling young and free," Owen told People. "I've done videos before where there's a bunch of people standing around putting makeup on me, and I don't think of that as being free. I wanted the all-American road trip."

    He added, "I thought why don't I just get in a van with the director and take some good friends and hit the road and see what happens?"

    Chris Stapleton is sort of featured. Owen is wearing one of Stapleton's tour T-shirts in the clip.
  • Jake Owen re-released the song in a new version that features Ronnie Dunn's voice alongside his own. "I was lucky enough to go on tour with Brooks & Dunn early in my career," said Owen. "I would sit out on the lawn of the amphitheaters and listen to their sound check every day. To have Ronnie's voice on a song with me is a dream come true. I have always been such a fan and when I first heard 'American Country Love Song,' it reminded me of the Brooks & Dunn song 'Only in America.'"

    "I sent the song to Ronnie and asked him if he would sing on it with me," he continued. "When I received an e-mail back from him saying that he really liked the song and would send the track back to me with his vocal, I was like a kid on Christmas morning waiting with anticipation. And man, did he nail it! I still can't believe it."
  • The video's director just brought one camera, and they shot the clip both inside and outside the van. Owen told Radio.com:

    "We didn't have a plan. That was the greatest part about it. Every time you shoot videos, it's like, 'All right, we're gonna do this; we're gonna do this; we're gonna do that.' And I just said, 'Look, man, we're not gonna have a plan. I just want you to capture what happens, and let's turn it into something great.' And that's kind of what we did."

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