Brad Paisley: on his recent release “No I in Beer” and his last show before Social Distancing (Audio)
Brad Paisley talks more in depth about his latest release “No I in Beer” and how the current times have changed the meaning of the song in ways unimaginable just a few months ago and honoring those on the frontlines. Paisley also takes a moment to reflect on his last live show before social distancing brought touring and concert events to a sudden halt.
There are a few things I changed, for instance, the original opening line was “there’s a bunch of people coming over,” yet another example of things you would never imagine don’t apply in life, all of a sudden don’t right now. So I had to rewrite that opening. I actually like better what’s there. It’s interesting because when I wrote the song, it didn’t have this large scale, over-arching theme of unity, well it did, but it didn’t have this feeling that it has. The same exact words, two months ago, “we’re all in this together, there’s no I in beer,” two months ago that’s just a “yay let’s party,” now it’s like defiant and a rallying cry almost. Like a fight song. It’s crazy that, that can mean such a different thing in less than eight weeks. Of course that last verse as well, that last chorus. It would have been a slightly different list of the people I am toasting at the end that are keeping this country going. Nurses are the new soldiers, for many years we’ve slowly learned how much we need to appreciate our soldiers, and it’s no different with nurses now. I was thrilled to be able to throw that line in, because they deserve a beer and then some. They deserve a bar.
I had the unique vantage point that maybe no one else will get to do for a while. That is that on, remember the Wednesday the NBA walked off the court. That was when the damn broke. The NBA player tests positive, they walk off, I remember Mark Cuban looking at his phone realizing, “oh, it’s over, season is over for a bit. Temporarily or who knows.” Live Nation, that same night, within hours, pulled all American tours off the road. But I had a Canadian tour, and I was playing the next night in Saskatawan, like three hours north of the border, town of 30,000 people, and no cases in the province. Zero. So they didn’t cancel mine. Everyone in American was grounded, and so I flew up there. On the way up there, got word that the next night, which was Alberta, was canceled. So I knew the next night was it. And the week after that was Houston Rodeo which had already canceled. I knew going forward that everything’s canceled. I have one gig to do tonight. All the people in that arena knew, this was the last concert they’re going to see for a long time. I knew walking up there this was the last chance I was going to look at an audience, and I played an entire show looking at these people, singing songs like “Today” and “Last Time for Everything,” realizing “oh my God,” I’m not going to see this sight, this crew, this band, this stage, this arena, anything like this for who knows how long. At the time thinking, for two months I’m not going to see this. Well, that would have been amazing right. It’s going to be a lot longer than that. I said to them, after the third song, “I think we all know how special it is that we get to do this tonight, and we are going to soak this in tonight.”