‘Country For California’ by Thomas Rhett - Lyrics & Meaning

The only song on Thomas Rhett's seventh album, About a Woman, that the affable Georgia crooner didn't co-write, ‘Country For California’ is a sun-soaked heartbreak anthem.

It's a summery, laid-back offering that feels like the sibling to Thomas Rhett's 2021 track, ‘Country Again’, which found TR reflecting on how he'd been spending too much time in California, and had subsequently forgot his down-home roots. For instance, the line “Saw your momma, she said your boots are still sittin’ there by the back door” feels particularly reminiscent of ‘Country Again’s ‘Tucked my boots in the back of the closet / They didn't feel like me no more”. Tomas Rhett uses California as a symbol of choosing a more glamorous, but perhaps superficial, lifestyle over a comparatively country and ‘real’ way of living out in the sticks.

Given the fact that the narrative follows a woman that chooses the West Coast over her rural roots, ‘Country For California’ aptly carries a breezy, sunny and coastal ambience.

The hazy electric guitar combines with the meandering drum pattern to create a decidedly smooth, relaxed atmosphere, with Thomas Rhett's easygoing, drawn-in delivery capturing the feeling that he's content to be patient and wait for her to come home.

“Girl, I get it some dreams are just too big to stay in a small town

And right now, you gotta go chase ‘em

So, spread them wings out wide

Leave me and these two lanes behind

I hope you find what you’re tryna find

But baby keep in mind”

Thomas Rhett describes a classic country love-story gone wrong, where his partner decides to ditch her small town so that she can chase down her city-based dreams.

TR, good-natured as ever, wishes her the best and hopes she finds what she's striving for, but admits that he believes she'll realise she misses the country before too long.

“If you get tired of that sunshine and 72

Ocean blue waves and those Hollywood stars

If waitin’ tables on the boulevard just ain’t working out for ya, oh

And if those Beverly Hills get to bringing you down

Put that smile on the jet plane when the wheels hit the ground

I'll be sitting right here at this bar with a drink, waiting on ya, oh

If you find out, you’re too country for California”

The ‘Look What God Gave Her’ paints an idyllic picture of California at first, with its abundance of A-list celebrities and serene, 72 degree weather, before the protagonist mentions how the glitz and glamour can get jading after a while. Thomas Rhett employs a satisfying piece of wordplay as he depicts the ‘heights’ of Beverly Hills as being capable of making his lover feel ‘low’. He assures her that he'll be sat at this same bar stool in the meantime, keenly awaiting her return.

“Saw your momma, she said your boots are still sittin’ there by the back door

I wonder if you’re, makin’ heads turn

Like you used to do ‘round here

Oh, but you ain’t here”

The entirety of ‘Country For California’ feels like an alternative perspective from Thomas Rhett's ‘Country Again’, which finds him using the gloss of California living to highlight how he strayed from his country upbringing. This verse comes across as a twist on the ‘Country Again’ lyric, “Saw your momma, she said your boots are still sittin’ there by the back door”, with TR speaking to his partner's mother, who tells him she left her boots at home. Crucially, her mom leaves them where they are, perhaps suggesting she shares Rhett's view that she'll return soon.

“I hope you find what you're tryna find

And it's right back here in these arms of mine”

Here, Thomas Rhett flips the earlier lyric about wishing his flame the best. He's still outlining how he wants his lover willtofind what she's looking for, but adds the heartwarming caveat that he hopes she finds it with him, back in the small town that she left.

Thomas Rhett hasn't delved into the specifics as to how ‘Country For California’ came about, but in an interview with Holler before releasing his 2024 album, the ‘Where We Started’ crooner revealed how his outlook when crafting About a Woman was intentionally different compared to that of his previous two albums.

TR explained, “When I think of this project, I keep thinking of the word ‘Freedom’. Not to dive super deep here, but...2019 was the last year that I felt that sort of freedom of just, ‘Man, whatever I'm feeling, I'm just gonna say, whatever feels good I'm just gonna write, whatever sounds good, that's what gonna go on the record’. I think COVID did a number on all of us, but for me, I think being so secluded and not being able to get that instant feedback from fans by constantly being on the road - I love playing new songs on the road to kind of feel, “Is this song vibing, is this song not vibing”. And so I made a couple of records that I'm for sure proud of, but I think those records were...‘Fear’ is not the right word either, but they were made from not a free place, if that makes any sense”.

Thomas Rhett touchingly mused about how he made sure joy was at the heart of About a Woman, “So somewhere around the beginning of last year, I started having conversations with the guy who actually produced this whole next record, Julian Bunetta, who I've been friends with forever and he produced all the One Direction stuff, just recently produced the whole Sabrina Carpenter record, and produced the whole new Teddy Swims project, so he's had this big resurgence. He looked at me and was like, ’Man, it'd been six years I had a hit, and I just kept coming back and kept coming back and kept coming back, because I love it’. And he was like, ‘How much do you love this?’ That was a very pivotal question for me, because I was like, ‘Man, I love it more than most things in the world. Minus my family, music is what I live and breathe’. He was like, ‘Well, lets write from that part, rather than from the part of, ‘Well what if and what if and what if’”.

“Girl, I get it some dreams are just too big to stay in a small town

And right now, you gotta go chase ‘em

So, spread them wings out wide

Leave me and these two lanes behind

-

I hope you find what you’re tryna find

But baby keep in mind

-

If you get tired of that sunshine and 72

Ocean blue waves and those Hollywood stars

If waitin’ tables on the boulevard just ain’t working out for ya, oh

And if those Beverly Hills get to bringing you down

Put that smile on the jet plane when the wheels hit the ground

I'll be sitting right here at this bar with a drink, waiting on ya, oh

If you find out, you’re too country for California

-

Saw your momma, she said your boots are still sittin’ there by the back door

I wonder if you’re, makin’ heads turn

Like you used to do ‘round here

Oh, but you ain’t here

-

So, if you get tired of that sunshine and 72

Ocean blue waves and those Hollywood stars

If waiting tables on the boulevard just ain’t working out for ya, oh

And if those Beverly Hills get to bringing you down

Put that smile on the jet plane when the wheels hit the ground

I'll be sittin’ right here at this bar with a drink, waitin’ on ya, oh

If you find out you’re too country for California

For California

-

I hope you find what you're tryna find

And it's right back here in these arms of mine

-

If you get tired of that sunshine and 72

Ocean blue waves and those Hollywood stars

If waitin’ tables on the boulevard just ain’t workin’ out for ya, oh

And if those Beverly Hills get to bringing you down

Put that smile on the jet plane when the wheels hit the ground

I'll be sittin’ right here at this bar with a drink, waitin’ on ya, oh

If you find out you’re too country for California”

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