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What is an interpolation?
In general definition, it means "the insertion of something of a different nature into something else" – sounds a bit forced, doesn't it?
In music, it's defined as "the act of taking part of an existing musical work (as opposed to a sound recording) and incorporating it into a new work". Whether you'd make that out to mean "stealing" is a whole other discussion not for here, but you get the picture.
We're talking about sampling, y'all, which is something that country music has had a lot of fun with, particularly over the last couple of decades. Whether it's Jake Owen finding new ways of being outside again or Shaboozey and MGK incorporating well-loved tunes to make their opening country statements, the genre is no stranger to the act of interpolating.
But are any of them actually any good? We'd like to think so. Here, we delve in to the truly notable times a country artist has sown in a melody or chorus into their own work, from worst to best.
Here is Holler's List of Country Music Interpolations, from Worst to Best.
mgk Feat. Jelly Roll - Lonely Road
In episode two of the British TV comedy series The Mighty Boosh, after a spate of animal disappearances from the zoo, Howard and Vince uncover Dixon Bainbridge's secret laboratory and the terrible truth behind his "experiments" with the missing animals.
The crazy explorer with even crazier ideas has been taking parts of animals and splicing them together to make completely new animals, which he hopes will bring more visitors to the zoo.
These cross-species experiments result in some of the weirdest creatures that anyone has ever laid eyes on, so shocking that people look away when they see them. Still none of those mutant animals are as horrifying as MGK and Jelly Roll’s interpolation of John Denver’s enduring country classic, ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ where they change the lyrics to “Lonely Road, take me home / to the place that we went wrong / Where’d you go now? It’s been a ghost town / and I’m still here all alone.”
Despite MGK clearly being the “mastermind” behind it all, he and Jelly Roll should both be convicted under the Joint Enterprise Law for recording a song so unbelievably dumb that the listener will actually feel more stupid after hearing it.
- Jof Owen
Pitbull Feat. Tim McGraw - Get Get Get Down
Bizarrely, Pitbull’s Tim McGraw ‘I Like It, I Love It’-interpolating ‘Get, Get, Get Down’ was released the same week as Flo Rida’s ‘Feels Right (I Love It)’, which interpolates the exact same McGraw song... You’ll be even more perplexed when you hear that these two club-ready tracks arrived this year.
While Mr. Worldwide undoubtedly deserves some credit for his relentless pursuit of a country hit – having released countless Nashville-inspired collaborations over the years – ‘Get, Get, Get Down’ doesn’t quite land as he’d hope.
It pivots around a thumping beat and a set of trivial and deeply cringey lyrics that should’ve been left back in the 2000s.
- Maxim Mower
Jake Owen - On The Boat Again
This is just blasphemous, really.
Not satisfied enough in running Dire Straits through the ringer (don't even get us started on 'I Want My CMT'), Owen actually committed this piece of heresy to tape.
Turning Willie Nelson's euphoric dedication to the road into a community college level Jimmy Buffett-rip off, Owen's been about as lazy creatively as he sings about wishing to be out on a boat for the entirety of the song. In trying to create something dry that breaks the fourth wall of pastiche, he's ended up, well, a bit lost at sea.
Avoid at all costs, go and listen to Willie instead.
- Ross Jones
Dustin Lynch & Jelly Roll - Chevrolet
Borrowing the melody from Dobie Gray's 1973 hit ‘Drift Away,’ Dustin Lynch and Jelly Roll’s ‘Chevrolet’ tells that age old story of a country boy meeting a city girl in a bar, except this time around, in a huge plot twist, it turns out she isn’t from the city at all. She just looked like she was from the city. She actually loves nothing more than driving down dirt roads with the windows down listening to Brooks & Dunn!
Jessi Alexander, Chase McGill and Hunter Phelps were guilty of writing this one, with credit given to Mentor Williams who originally wrote ‘Drift Away,’ a song about how the power of music can turn any bad day around.
It can also make it a lot worse, Dustin.
- JO
Flo Rida Feat. Brian Kelley - Feels Right (I Love It)
Oddly not the only song that interpolates Tim McGraw’s ‘I Like It, I Love It’ to be released in mid-February, Flo Rida and Brian Kelley formed an unlikely alliance for this EDM-driven party-starter.
Flo Rida does his best to name-check all the artists he probably tried to get on this song, from Morgan Wallen to Beyoncé to McGraw himself, but in a way, the Florida half of Florida Georgia Line makes more sense for this Sunshine State-themed track.
Although we wouldn’t admit it too loudly, ‘Feels Right (I Love It)’ is actually very catchy and Flo Rida knows his way around a hit-worthy melody, yet the attempted countrification plunges this into overly cheesy territory.
- MM
Chris Young - Young Love & Saturday Nights
Chris Young is never going to miss the chance to strap on his electric guitar and feel like a real man for a music video, even if that means terrorising an all time classic.
David Bowie is turning in his grave at the horrendous use of the riff from his classic 1974 single, 'Rebel Rebel', to vomit up another heinous memory of summer chasing tail like Benny Hill. Somehow, Young manages to also pillage Bryan Adam's 'Summer of '69' at the same time, without really paying any sort of worthy tribute to either.
Really, you would've hoped Young would've grown out of this by now.
- RJ
MacKenzie Carpenter - Country Girls (Just Wanna Have Fun)
Mackenzie Carpenter took a page from pop queen Cyndi Lauper when she unleashed her 2023 Nash bash anthem, ‘Country Girls (Just Wanna Have Fun),’ on Music City. The twanged up tune interpolates Lauper’s 1983 banger, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, piggy-backing on the arrangement and rewriting the lyrics only slightly to suit to the “country girl” agenda.
‘Country Girls (Just Wanna Have Fun)’ is not a bad example of interpolation, just an uninspired one. The Carpenter song too closely mimics its blueprint, holding out hope that its juvenile lyrics will come off as original.
- AP
Jake Owen - I Was Jack (You Were Diane)
Not the first Jake Owen entry on this list, and likely not the last, 'I Was Jack (You Were Diane)' is the best of his many interpolation songs... if only by a little.
Taking inspiration (i.e. lyrical structure, melody, chord progression and the like) from John Mellencamp's iconic 1982 classic 'Jack and Diane,' Owen puts a slightly southern twang on the song, which went on to top the Billboard Country Airplay chart, as well as notch No. 43 on the all-genre Hot 100 back in 2018.
'I Was Jack (You Were Diane)' is a mostly palatable offering that doesn't try to pretend like it's something it's not. Drawing direct influence from the original song's storyline, and basically building off of it, it's a fine addition to Owen's setlists and an earworm that effortlessly lives in our heads rent free.
If we were to flash back to spring of 2018, this almost complete rip-off of a beloved hit for the sake of a new country summer smash was like the first drop in the now overflowing bucket of country interpolations. Now, six years later, Owen has almost made these types of cheesy knock-offs a core pillar of his artistry... but we'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not.
- Lydia Farthing
Cole Swindell - She Had Me At Heads Carolina
Now we're getting somewhere.
Jo Dee Messina's 'Heads Carolina Tails California' is a '90s classic, a Top 10 hit that captured the wholesome idea that anywhere is worth heading to if you're running with the one you love. In 2022, Cole Swindell took the karaoke staple and decided he'd have a little meta fun with it – creating the equally enjoyable 'She Had Me At Heads Carolina'.
More than a straight-forward sample, Swindell, Ashley Gorley, Jesse Frasure and Thomas Rhett took the song and subverted the narrative, with the protagonist falling in love with a girl at the karaoke bar who's singing 'Heads Carolina, Tails California'.
With 'She Had Me...', Swindell and Co. tastefully bring the '90s bop into the 21st century, all while earning themselves a summer smash in the process.
- RJ
Blake Shelton - God's Country
While a somewhat loose interpolation, Blake Shelton’s 2019 twanger ‘God's Country’ takes a page from Brooks & Dunn’s 1991 classic ‘Brand New Man.’ Not so much in sound, the Shelton tune nods to the lyrics of the latter.
Where Brooks & Dunn’s iconic chorus plays, “I saw the light I've been baptized,” the chorus to ‘God’s Country’ goes “I saw the light in a sunrise” with mentions of baptism and renewal just a few lines later.
It may seem like a stretch – the Shelton track a hearty southern rocker, the Brooks & Dunn tune a neon-tinted country opus – but the inflection and delivery of the two choruses are too similar to be mere coincidence.
Shelton and the song’s writers – Devin Dawson, Jordan Schmidt and HARDY – were no doubt tipping their hats to the ‘90s icons and their enduring hit.
- Alli Patton
Kane Brown - I Can Feel It
If we've learned anything over the last few years, it's that Kane Brown knows how to conjure up a hit.
Marking his 11th No. 1 single at country radio this high-energy anthem features some snippets of Phil Collins' beloved 'In The Air Tonight,' including it's trademark drum solo, as well as a reprisal of the chorus. An infectious tune that depicts a first encounter at a bar that leads to something more than a spark, Brown's countrified take features a much faster tempo than Collins' classic ballad and a jazzy fiddle riddled throughout.
It's one of the more crafty interpolations in recent memory, and one that helped cement Brown as one of the genre's leading hitmakers.
- LF
Morgan Wallen - Everything I Love
A prime example of an interpolation being used subtly and effectively, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time stand-out, ‘Everything I Love,’ infuses The Allman Brothers Band’s 1973 classic, ‘Midnight Rider’.
Interpolations always feel most satisfying when there’s a meta, self-referential moment, as we get here when Wallen tips his cap to the key lyric in ‘Midnight Rider’ (“We were listenin' to ‘One More Silver Dollar’ / Hanging out my Silverado / Down a road I love to ride”). It’s an infectious, light-hearted and unashamedly twangy anthem that finds Wallen poking fun at those who say he isn’t country enough.
‘Everything I Love’ showcased the Sneedville hitmaker’s playful, jovial side, and complements more brooding tracks on the album, such as ‘Last Night’ and ‘Thinkin’ Bout Me’.
- MM
Brad Paisley Feat. Alabama - Old Alabama
Brad Paisley’s 2011 anthem, ‘Old Alabama’, not only pays tribute to the band Alabama and features the longtime country outfit, but it also interpolates the group’s 1982 masterpiece, ‘Mountain Music.’
"We were writing a song that mentions a few things and realized that the perfect bridge for the song is the bridge from 'Mountain Music,’” the artist explained of how the song and subsequent collaboration came to be. “Instead of sampling a piece of 'Mountain Music,' I had those guys come in the studio and record it. It was one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my life."
The Paisley tune incorporates ‘Mountain Music’ throughout, even going as far to name-drop the titles of several of Alabama's standards, like ‘Feels So Right’, ‘Love in the First Degree’ and ‘Dixieland Delight,’ in its lyrics.
The song is honestly an Alabama sandwich if we’ve ever tasted one.
- AP
Shaboozey - A Bar Song (Tipsy)
To say that 'A Bar Song (Tipsy)' is in contention for Song of the Summer would be a severe understatement. While it might not have been the song that inspired this list as a whole, there's no doubt that it's the one of the most masterful interpolation among the group.
Tastefully incorporating elements of J-Kwon's 2004 smash hit, 'Tipsy,' Shaboozey's take on the rowdy bar-stomper is, simply put, just three minutes of gleeful indulgence.
“I had been wanting to flip a 2000s song for a while," Shaboozey told Billboard earlier this year. "I just said, ‘Everybody at the bar getting tipsy,’ and then we were like, ‘Oh, shit!’ The producer picked up the guitar and started playing the chords, and then we started writing, just having fun and being creative.”
What started as a fun means of creative expression, featuring one of Shaboozey's favorite songs from his adolescence, ended up being a history-making blockbuster hit that has seen the Virginia native top the Billboard Hot 100 for four non-consecutive weeks, as well as the Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay and equivalent charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the UK... not to mention it's just a damn lot of fun to sing along to.
- LF
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
It’s not just Jelly Roll and Jake Owen who have been interpolating. Like most controversial things in country music, Johnny Cash was already doing it years ago.
In 1957, he released his debut studio album, Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar, which included the already popular Sun Records single, ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’
Cash took the melody for the song and a lot of the lyrics from a song sung by Beverly Mahr on Gordon Jenkins’ Seven Dreams album from 1953, but changed the chorus and the location to Folsom Prison as he told the story of an inmate who “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”
Cash heard the song during a stint with the US Air Force stationed in West Germany and adapted it into a song about a prisoner after seeing the 1951 movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.
At the time, Jenkins was not credited on the original Cash recording as a songwriter, but in the early 1970s, after the song became popular, Cash paid Jenkins a settlement of approximately $75,000 following a lawsuit.
"At the time, I really had no idea I would be a professional recording artist,” Cash said in the '90s. “I wasn't trying to rip anybody off."
- JO
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