The Best Country Music Puns

‘Goes Without Saying’ by Post Malone & Brad Paisley

When crafting his debut country album, F-1Trillion, Post Malone endeavoured to pay homage to virtually every form and staple of the genre. As we all know, puns lie at the heart of country music, and here Posty recruits 2000s icon Brad Paisley - and an A-list team of co-writers - for a top-notch piece of wordplay on ‘Goes Without Saying’.

As well as showcasing Post Malone's love for traditional-leaning country, ‘Goes Without Saying’ offers a witty twist on the titular phrase. After crooning repeatedly that ‘It goes without saying’ why his ex left him in the dust, Posty and Brad switch up the meaning, and forlornly explain how ‘She goes without saying goodbye’.

Amidst the plethora of star-studded duets Post Malone secured for F-1Trillion, this one flew a little under-the-radar. But it goes without saying that we love it, and that it's yet another example of how nimbly Posty knits different strands of the genre together. And, most importantly of all, it's woven around a killer pun.

- Maxim Mower

‘Fair to Midland' – Dwight Yoakam

Dwight Yoakam’s 2014 tune, ‘Fair to Midland,’ is a homophonous head-spinner, the Western-flecked country waltz interchanging “fair” and “fare” to get a point across.

“Fare to Midland is all that I need,” the star croons, “If I had fare to Midland, I'd take the first seat.” In the song, he’s trying to make his way back to the Texas locale, so he can make it right with the woman he’s wronged. While attempting to be upright and honorable – or “fair” – to the one he left heartbroken, he finds acquiring enough money to get to Midland is a far greater feat than anticipated.

It’s a bit of a muddled song but an effective one all the same.

- Alli Patton

'On the Other Hand' – Randy Travis

For some reason, cheatin’ songs and puns seem to go hand in hand, Randy Travis’ 1986 hit being a prime example.

'On the Other Hand’ finds the star bargaining, torn between what’s right and what’s wrong. He’s found a lover, someone who has rekindled within him a long-snuffed out flame. On one hand, this relationship makes him feel alive, makes him feel like he’s found himself. Something that feels so good could never be wrong, right?

However, he sings, “On the other hand, there's a golden band.” He may have found someone who makes him feel nice, but she’s married. He could stay, ignore the truth, and continue on in their affair … “But the reason I must go is on the other hand.”

- AP

‘Behind Bars’ by Jelly Roll (with Brantley Gilbert & Struggle Jennings)

Jelly Roll delivers a clever feint with ‘Behind Bars’, which invites listeners to assume he's singing about his time spent in prison. In reality, the track is a punny delight, with Jelly and his good buddies, Brantley Gilbert and Struggle Jennings, name-checking a number of famous alcohol brands that keep getting them in trouble.

In this track, Jelly Roll is pals with Jack Daniels (“Jack's got a rap sheet a country mile long”) and Jose Cuervo (“Jose's got a death wish, we've had some crazy nights”), doubling down on the premise of the song - that all his closest friends, i.e. makes of alcohol, can be found behind dive bars, rather than prison bars.

- MM

'She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)' - Jerry Reed

Written by Tim DuBois and recorded by Jerry Reed, 'She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)' was released in 1982 as the third and final single from Reed's album, The Man with the Golden Thumb.

The song tells the story of a recently divorced man who had originally asked his girlfriend to marry him simply because he didn't like the taste of his own cooking. After a few years of marriage - which he admits "weren't all that bad" - the relationship falls apart, and the man comes home to find his suitcase on the porch and all the locks changed, while a note stuck on the mailbox reads, "Goodbye, turkey. My Attorney will be in touch."

When the case finally goes to court, the judge is much harder on the man than he expected and awards the woman the house, both cars, the colour television set and full custody of the kids, and then orders the man to pay alimony, child support and the court fees, which "adds up to more than this cowboy makes."

"While she's livin' like a queen on alimony, I'm workin' two shifts," he sings. "Eatin' baloney, askin' myself, 'Why didn't you just learn to cook?'"

Having originally agreed to split everything fairly down the middle, the man is now left thinking that his ex-wife ended up with the better half ("the goldmine") while he makes a pun of being left with "the shaft," both a vertical passageway into a goldmine and a slang phrase for a situation where someone has been tricked or cheated, especially by the legal system.

- JO

'If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me' - The Bellamy Brothers

The Bellamy Brothers' huge international crossover hit 'If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me' was actually originally inspired by a Groucho Marx joke.

Songwriter David Bellamy told country music journalist Tom Roland that he regularly watched Marx's program, You Bet Your Life, where Marx sometimes used the quote while interviewing an attractive female contestant, wiggling his cigar and raising his eyebrows as he delivered the double entendre.

- JO

'She's Acting Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)' – Gary Stewart

Gary Stewart’s 1975 opus ‘She's Acting Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)’ provides some sharp word play for when the heartache gets a little too tough to stomach.

The now-standard pits a man against his deceptive partner. For the entire tune, the narrator knows he’s being two-timed, yet he would rather turn a blind eye – or in this case, turn to the bottle – than do anything about it. Stewart sings, “While she pours herself on some stranger / I pour myself a drink somewhere”.

When she’s out and pretending she’s unattached, he can drown his pain in something strong. She's acting single, so why can’t he pour himself a double?

- AP

‘Pledge Allegiance to the Hag’ – Eric Church

In his 2006 anthem ‘Pledge Allegiance to the Hag’, Eric Church isn’t waving Old Gory. Instead, his red, white and blue is replaced with ‘Red Bandana’, ’Silver Wings’ and ‘Working Man Blues’ as he pledges his fealty to the Hag – country icon Merle Haggard, that is.

The tune plants listeners in a dive bar where the patrons consistently pay tribute to the country legend, tipping their hats and raising their glasses to the man behind their jukebox full of classics. “They say country's fading,” the artist sings against a barrage of steadfast strings, “But we're still waving that flag around here / When it's time to go, you know you're welcome back / Where the people pledge allegiance to the Hag.”

- AP

'Some Beach' - Blake Shelton

Have you ever found yourself living through the shittiest of days? Maybe your car broke down, you got laid off or perhaps a cute little dental operation, which are always oh so enjoyable?

Well, Blake Shelton's 2004 hit single, 'Some Beach,' is as good as they come, with equal parts relatability and humor in true Shelton fashion.

As the Oklahoman struggles with his old pickup, deals with assholes on the highway, gets his parking spots stolen and buckles up for a trip to the dentist with some less than effective novocaine, he finds himself gearing up to cuss someone out but instead mutters "some beach".

Serving as a cheeky douple entendre, the title of the song fills in for Shelton, who would otherwise happily be calling everyone around him a "son of a bitch" or the southern version, "som' bitch." Instead, he drifts off into his imagination and dreams of "cold margaritas and hot Señoritas smiling with long dark hair" on his own beach... somewhere.

- Lydia Farthing

'River Bank' - Brad Paisley

If we're honest, it's frankly a miracle that Brad Paisley is only on this list one (and a half) times.

The king of country comedy himself, with notable inclusions like 'Online,' 'I'm Still A Guy,' 'Ticks' and more, Paisley has forged a reputation on his witty songs, as well as his heartfelt ballads, but this is a list of the Best Country Puns, after all.

With 2014's 'River Bank,' the guitar-wielding entertainer offered up yet another entry into his arsenal of plays on words, this time using the phrase "laughing all the way to the bank" to instead draw attention to enjoying life's beauties even when you're running low on cash. Co-written by Paisley and Kelley Lovelace, it's a southern, summertime jam about how they may not have a million dollar yacht, but have an inner tube, a trailer hitch, "each other and gas in the tank."

Instead of laughing on their way to cash in their six-figure checks, they're "laughing all the way to the river bank," which honestly sounds more fun anyway.

- LF

'Can't Pass the Bar' - Scotty McCreery

In the last couple of years, Scotty McCreery has become pretty good at the ole country pun. With previous tunes like 'Damn Strait' and 'Cab in a Solo,' it was no surprise when his 2024 record, Rise & Fall, had yet another tongue-in-cheek moment in store with 'Can't Pass the Bar.'

The bar examination is famously administered in order to become a lawyer, and it's also infamously difficult to pass (which we suppose is good when it comes to the justice system?). However, that's not the only kind of bar that McCreery and his band of co-writers were referring to with this song.

A clever double meaning, "the bar" for McCreery is also talking about the one place that he and his friends can't pass up when given the opportunity. "We don't look like much, but we're pretty damn smart / For some good old boys that can't pass the bar," he sings, in true honky-tonking, bar song fashion.

- LF

Lauren Watkins - 'Mama I Made It'

Written by Rocky Block, Lauren Hungate and Lauren Watkins and released as part of the latter's 2024 debut album, The Heartbroken Record, 'Mama I Made It' highlights the young Nashville, Tennessean's penchant for a quippy play on the words, leading us down a lyrical path we weren't naturally expecting to take.

Where the title suggests the song is going to be about a triumph and achievement in life, it's actually quite the opposite - it captures the turmoil and consequences of what seems to be an argument at home, as the protagonist unleashes hell across the track.

With one too many swigs of Makers and one hefty slug of a baseball, the narrator is left to observe the chaos and damage they've caused, as notions of regret seep into the splintered wooden floors.

'Mama I Made It' reminds us to expect the unexpected when it comes to some of Nashville's finest songwriters.

‘Hard to Forget’ by Sam Hunt

Kicking off with a neatly integrated sample of Webb Pierce's 1953 track, ‘There Stands the Glass’, ‘Hard to Forget’ epitomises Sam Hunt's penchant for blending classic country riffs with trap-infused instrumentals.

Instead of taking place at the start of a relationship when someone's playing ‘hard to get’, Hunt finds himself in the thorny predicament of struggling to let go of his ex. Although he's feeling heartbroken, he's as witty as ever, describing his old flame as playing ‘hard to forget’.

- MM

‘Life Ain't Fair’ - Midland

‘Life Ain't Fair’, taken from Midland's 2022 project, The Last Resort: Greetings From, is the sole track from the record that features Jess Carson as the lead vocalist. The band's trademark swagger and strut is eschewed in favour of an intricate, tender and unifying portrayal of life's various hardships.

Carson warmly reimagines this journey as a theme-park named the ‘Life-Ain't-Fair’, with this solo write packed with colourful, wistful metaphors (“Just like a funhouse mirror / In a blur goes one more year”). ‘Life Ain't Fair’ felt like a more optimistic sequel to Jess Carson's previous solo offering, ‘Will This Life Be As Grand?’, from 2021's The Sonic Ranch, and serves as a reminder that puns can sometimes be serious.

- MM

‘Over Drinking’ - Little Big Town

Another classic that will have left songwriters across Nashville throwing their Bass Pro Shops caps on the ground in disgust as they kicked themselves for not thinking of this one first.

‘Over Drinking’ - not as in drinking too much, but as in being ‘over’ the idea of drinking about your ex - is one of those song-titles that it's hard to believe hasn't been devised before in country music. One of the highlights from Little Big Town's 2020 record, Nightfall, ‘Over Drinking’ features the four-piece's signature sleek harmonies, all while capturing the spirit of independence and self-assurance that pervades the album.

- MM

'Space Cowboy' - Kacey Musgraves

While much of this list is full of cheeky one liners and laughable prose, our Best Country Pun list isn't all fun and games.

Spawning from her critically acclaimed, award-winning album, Golden Hour – which if you ask this author is the best record of all time (but I digress) – 'Space Cowboy' is a heart-wrenching cosmic play on the prototypical cowboy love song.

Painting an expansive setting that sounds as void as we can imagine space is, Musgraves explains that it was only a matter of time before her love interest up and rode away because of his fear to be tied down. Rather than trying to fight it, she gives him all the room he needs to run, not expecting him to ever really return to her.

The term space cowboy has a variety of definitions and uses, sometimes referring to astronauts, other times to potheads (thank you Steve Miller Band, and even still as a futuristic celestial bounty hunter (see: Cowboy Bebop). The real magic of this Musgraves treasure, though, is the lack of punctuation between the title.

It's a masterclass at subtle, yet devastating wordplay, and one that we simply can't get our of our heads.

- LF

'Alimony' - Miranda Lambert

One of the highlights of Miranda Lambert's latest studio album, Postcards from Texas, was this punderful co-write with Shane McAnally and Natalie Hemby.

“We were out in my barn; I was showing Shane and Natalie the horses, and I asked if he had any other titles,” Lambert remembers of the day she, Shane and Natalie hit a creative streak. “He said he had one, and I was like, ‘What is it? Because your last one was ‘Looking Back on Luckenbach,’ which I didn’t think you could top. He said, ‘Well, ‘If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone, remember the Alamo-neeeee…’’ Natalie and I were like, ‘Alright, Shane! Stop showing off.’

The chorus line is a play on 'Remember the Alamo,' a legendary battle cry in the Texans' struggle for independence from Mexico as the Texian and Tejano soldiers defended the besieged fort.

In Miranda's case, it's not exactly independence she's fighting for. She's putting a gentle reminder out there to her duplicitous boyfriend to let him know that she won't hesitate in calling up her high rolling lawyer in Dallas to take him for every dollar he's got if he ever leaves her for another woman.

“My parents were private investigators in Dallas, Texas who worked a ton of divorce cases in highfalutin parts of town, so this wasn’t hard to write," she adds. "I’d heard about it my whole life. And once we had the line – 'If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone, remember the alimony' – we were off! We used every Texas metaphor we could come up with on purpose; we wanted to take something kind of shitty and put some humor back in it. I mean, the guy gets out pretty easy if all he does is move back in with his mom.”

- JO

‘Whiskey Glasses’ - Morgan Wallen

Many of the songs on this list pivot around one cleverly constructed turn of phrase. Morgan Wallen's rowdy 2018 anthem, ‘Whiskey Glasses’, is peppered with several alcohol-inspired puns.

Opening with the self-pitying "Poor me", Wallen quickly attempts to cover his tracks by flipping the meaning with the line, "Pour me another drink", as he attempts to drown his sorrows.

We get a similarly satisfying play on words when he hears the bell ringing behind the bar, signalling it's time for "Last call". before promising his ex, "I swear this will be my last call".

The crown jewel, of course, is the titular pun, with Morgan Wallen framing his empty whiskey glasses as lenses that offer him a rose-tinted perspective of his flailing love-life.

- MM

'Cleopatra, Queen of Denial' - Pam Tillis

Written by Pam Tillis with Bob DiPiero and Jan Buckingham, 'Cleopatra, Queen of Denial' is entirely based around one of the greatest country puns of all time.

As the Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, the actual Cleopatra had ruled over the river Nile. Here, Pam hilariously implores us all to refer to her simply as "Cleopatra", because she is "the Queen of Denial" when it comes to her wandering-eyed waste of space of a boyfriend, "buyin' all his alibis... just floating down a river of lies."

The video, which starred Pam lounging around in an Egyptian boudoir feeding grapes to her loser boyfriend and reading books with titles like Women Who Hate Men Who Hate Women and I'm Okay, You're A Jerk, was quite rightly nominated for Music Video of the Year at the 1993 CMA Awards but lost out to Alan Jackson's 'Chattahoochee.'

Fun fact! The guitar solo in the chorus takes the melody of the traditional song 'The Streets of Cairo' - otherwise known as 'The snake charmer song' or 'The Poor Little Country Maid' - a well-known 19th century refrain traditionally associated with Egyptian culture.

There are just so many levels to this song!

- JO

'You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too' - The Statler Brothers

The original proverb "You can't have your cake and eat it too," is a reminder that you can't have possession of a cake and also eat that cake, because once you have eaten the cake you will no longer have it. It will have gone. The idea being that you can't enjoy both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives.

For the Statler Brothers' 1967 hit 'You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too,' songwriters Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman sacrificed some of the sense of the proverb when they made a pun of it, but who cares when the pun is this good!

It ends up being a song about a two timing scoundrel who wants to have his way with both Kate and Edith simultaneously, constantly sabotaging the romantic advances of the song's narrator whenever they go on a double date with the two women.

- JO