We take you behind the scenes and explore the making of one of our favorite tunes with The Song Remembers When…
Song: “Only In America”
Songwriters: Kix Brooks, Don Cook, and Ronnie Rogers
Album: Steers & Stripes
Since Brooks & Dunn host the Countdown this week, we wanted to spotlight one of the duo’s big hits – “Only In America.” The song topped the chart in October 2001. Kix Brooks shares:
“Me, and Don Cook, and Ronnie Rogers wrote this thing. We were out playing on the four-wheelers at my farm one day. We had such a great time and came back to the shop there and just got to talking about – ‘Man, how lucky are we to be born on this part of the planet?!’ We just started talking about how red, white, and blue we are, feeling patriotic. And, we said, ‘Let’s write this thing!’ I forget who came up with the title, but we couldn’t believe that we had never heard a song called ‘Only In America.’ We got to rhyming, like we do, and got it finished. We [Brooks & Dunn] were working on an album. Ronnie and I about had it finished, and our record label head gave us this song – ‘Ain’t Nothin’ ‘Bout You’ – and then, I finished up – the night before we went to record – on “Only In America,” and played Ronnie in the dressing room before we left.”
Ronnie Dunn adds:
“It fit perfect with the album title we were working on – Steers & Stripes.”
Kix asks:
“Did we come up with the album title first or was it after ‘Only In America?’”
Ronnie answers:
“No. Someone came in with merchandise and threw a bunch of t-shirts down. [There was] a flag with steer head stars and the bass player Michael Rhodes walked down and glanced at it and was like, ‘Ahhh, steers and stripes’ and walked off, so there’s the title to the album.”
Kix continues:
“It all happened pretty appropriately. We’ve had members of every service branch on stage with us [during the song] ever since 9/11, and it’s been really fun to let people know how we feel about where we’re at.”
Check out the Reboot II version of “Only In America” with Corey Kent:
Image: Sony Music Nashville