‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ by Luke Combs - Lyrics and Meaning

With country enjoying a purple patch in pop culture, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came knocking, looking for a suitable sync for its latest summer blockbuster.

That's come in the form of the release of Twisters, a sequel to the 1996 caper that found Helen Hunt battling a tornado. What's a better soundtrack for Daisy Edgar Jones and Glen Powell to run away from climate change in 2024 to? Country music!

The team behind such widely loved soundtracks as Barbie and The Greatest Showman really have pulled out the stops for this one, drafting the top picks of the country music roster for their all-storms-blazing romp. On May 15, Atlantic announced that Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll and even Tyler Childers would feature on the Twisters soundtrack, which is set for release the same day as the film on July 19.

First out of the blocks though was none other than Luke Combs, who shared that his suggestive contribution, 'Ain't No Love in Oklahoma', would be released May 16.

‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ sees a return to the muscled-up, electric guitar-driven hits in the mould of ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’, ‘Cold As You’ and ‘Out There’, with Luke Combs’ charismatic rasp rattling against the stormy, tempestuous instrumental.

Given the plot of the film it was written for, Twisters, the North Carolina hitmaker clearly followed the brief, with ’Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ carrying a level of drama, gravitas and a darker undercurrent that feels fitting for a natural disaster movie. It runs in a notably similar vein to Blake Shelton's rock-tinged No. 1, ‘God Country’.

With Luke exploring a softer, more introspective ambience for his forthcoming record, which looks set to pivot around his role as a father, ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ serves as a reminder that he can still deliver a raucous anthem when he wants to.

“I keep chasing that same old devil
Down the same old dead-end highway
Riding that storm running through my veins
Like a shot down tailspun airplane
Scared of nothing and I'm scared to death
I can't breathe and I catch my breath
But I keep chasing that same old devil
Down the same old dead-end highway”

The opening verse finds Luke Combs reeling off a flurry of images loosely connected to the titular ‘twister’ from the movie. At the heart of ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ is the temptation to chase the tornado, which seemingly serves as a metaphor for the Devil.

Luke explains how he keeps driving into the heart of the twister, with the fact that he's heading down a “dead-end highway” creating a sense of foreboding that the journey will not end well. He uses the visceral imagery of the storm itself coursing through his blood, such is the thrill and excitement he feels at storm-chasing.

“Ain't no love in Oklahoma
Just the whistle of a lone black train
You'll know when it's coming for ya
Riding in on the wind and rain”

The spiritual undertones come to the fore in the hook, with Luke Combs referring to the “whistle of a lone black train”. This appears to be a nod to Josh Turner's famous 2003 track, ‘Long Black Train’, in which the funeral train acts as a metaphor for sin.

Throughout ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’, the storm can be interpreted as representing the same thing, with the desire to ‘chase’ the storm despite the obvious dangers associated with this symbolising the pitfalls of succumbing to a sinful way of life.

“I got saved in the same Red River
The same Red River tryna drown me
It ain't knocking me down, I'm standing my ground
With the whole world falling all around me
I keep running, but I'm standing still
Pray for peacе, but I need the thrill
So I keep chasing that same old devil
Down thе same old dead-end highway”

The spiritually-inspired themes continue into the second verse, with the song's protagonist recalling being baptised in Oklahoma's Red River. Now, however, due to the swirling tornado charging through the state, Luke paints a vivid picture of that same river “tryna drown me”, with the violent weather causing the water levels to rise.

The line “I keep running but I'm standing still” mirrors the juxtaposition we see earlier with the lyric “I can't breathe and I catch my breath”, with Luke Combs desperately trying to keep moving forward, yet the twister's shuddering gusts of wind hold him at bay.

This could also serve as a powerful metaphor for the protagonist's feeling of being stuck in the same place in life, despite doing everything they can to keep progressing and evolving.

During an appearance on the Bobby Bones Show, Luke Combs delved into how ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ and his involvement in Twisters came about, “I got reached out to via management, like, ‘Hey, we're putting together this soundtrack for this movie’. I was a huge fan of the original Twister, which was one of my favourite movies as a kid. I was excited when I heard they were making another movie in that franchise, and they were like, ‘Hey, we're just looking for songs’. I believe the whole soundtrack is original music that's actually written for the movie”.

Luke went on to underline, “I just felt like it was kind of an exciting opportunity to write something that's not for me. Like it doesn't have to necessarily fit any kind of theme or my thing, I felt like I could almost step outside of my little comfort zone”.

Luke revealed that, perhaps surprisingly, he wasn't shown any clips from the film before writing ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’, “I didn't see any parts of the movie at all to write it, I got on a Zoom call with Jonathan Singleton and some folks from the movie and the soundtrack team, and they essentially were just [telling] us, ‘Here's what we're thinking, here are our ideas’. Tere were a lot of buzzwords and themes and descriptions of things. It was interesting writing it without having seen anything...obviously if it was a movie I was unaware of, if Twister didn't exist, that would've been a lot more difficult to not have some idea of what was gonna happen. But it was fun, it was exciting. It was a really fun time”.

Luke then touched on any sense of apprehension he might be feeling at making the decision to release ‘Ain't No Love in Oklahoma’ as his next Country Radio single, despite it not appearing on his own project, “It's the first time doing that for sure! So we'll see how it goes, you know? I guess we take some sort of calculated risk...it just felt like an opportunity to do something a little bit outside of my comfort zone”.

“I keep chasing that same old devil
Down the same old dead-end highway
Riding that storm running through my veins
Like a shot down tailspun airplane
Scared of nothing and I'm scared to death
I can't breathe and I catch my breath
But I keep chasing that same old devil
Down the same old dead-end highway

Ain't no love in Oklahoma
Just the whistle of a lone black train
You'll know when it's coming for ya
Riding in on the wind and rain

I got saved in the same Red River
The same Red River tryna drown me
It ain't knocking me down, I'm standing my ground
With the whole world falling all around me
I keep running, but I'm standing still
Pray for peacе, but I need the thrill
So I keep chasing that same old devil
Down thе same old dead-end highway

Ain't no love in Oklahoma
Just the whistle of a lone black train
You'll know when it's coming for ya
Riding in on the wind and rain

Ain't no love in Oklahoma
Just the whistle of a lone black train
You'll know when it's coming for ya
Riding in on the wind and rain
Ain't no love in Oklahoma
Just the whistle of a lone black train
You'll know when it's coming for ya
Riding in on the wind and rain”

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