When Country Came Back to Town

I was there when Shooter Jennings rewound the sound like a cassette

I watched Jamey Johnson cut "You Can't Cash My Checks"

Back then Rowdy Jason Cope was running shine sunset to vine

Picking songs with Leroy Powell making redneck isms rhyme

I guess now everyone knows Cousin Dave but he been around awhile

Proving simple truth and music they just don't go out of style

It's hard to tell when you're in it sometimes the moment's too profound

But if I had to bet my money that's when country came back to town

Right after that I moved to Nashville and most the Broadways stars

Wanted to be Cody Canada, Ryan Bingham or Hayes Carll

They seemed too cautious to commit, so they surrendered to the game

But nobody sang like Brandy Carlile or wrote like Nikki Lane

But you couldn't deny that it was lost or how it would be found

But when Sturgill climbed High Top Mountain country came back to town

♪

Beyond the pickups and the backroads, you could almost hear it play

Though it was softer than a whisper through the pines

Some say it never left, some say that it got saved

Some say, like everything, it changes over time

Well all I know for certain

Is i'm glad I was around

When country came back to town

Oh, when country came back to town

As the divide grew even greater between commerce and art

Folks like Miranda Lambert kept the beat inside its heart

Right along with Chris and Morgane and Kacey Musgraves too

What took the world so long to catch on, for us was nothing new

But by the time the torch was passed and the hatchet was laid down

Music Row had nearly burned to ash

When country came back to town

Beyond the pickups and the backroads, you could almost hear it play

Though it was softer than a whisper through the pines

Some say it never left, some say that it got saved

Some say, like everything, it changes over time

Well all I know for certain

Is i'm glad I was around

When country came back to town

Oh, when country came back to town

♪

Now here we are eighteen years later with a list a mile long

Of names like Childers, Jinks, Price, and Whitey, Hood, Shook, Cook, Cauthen and Combs

Lord knows it's hard to name them all, but hell, right off the top of my head

Isbell, Eady, Patton, Moonpies, Turnpike, Colter, and Crockett

And won't be stopping, no name dropping till history books echo the sound

Of all the folks who saddled up and drove country

Back to town

Oh, back to town