Lyrics

THAT MAKES IT COUNTRY

It's not that locomotive beat the way it makes you move your feet
It's not the cowboys at the bar or the pedal steel guitar
It's not the twang in their voice that makes it my first choice
It's the story behind it - that makes it country

Well, Jesse was a cowboy and he played a mean guitar
He hooked up with Loretta at the local honky-tonk
Loretta's dad wad pastor of the Southern Baptist Church
And when they ran away to Nashville he called a missing person search

It's not the steady upright bass or the goatees on their face
It's not the line dancing crowd or the banjo picking sound
It's not the scratch of fiddle bows or the Willie Nelson clothes
It's the story behind it - that makes it country

They laid low from the law for a couple months or so
Until Loretta got the nerve and said "there's something you should know"
She said "it's all my fault we're hiding from my daddy and my kin
You see, the truth is I'm not 21, sorry but I'm only 17"

It ain't that Carolina Drawl or the way we say "Y'all"
It's not the leather boots and spurs or the Stetsons, his and hers
It's not the gin in dirty glasses or the cowgirls with big...hair
It's the story behind it - that makes it country

Songs in "G" and major keys, rawhide shirts and Wrangler jeans
Harmonicas and mandolins, here come those same three chords again
Telecasters with a slide, mechanical bulls and bareback riding
Red state boys with necks that match, now a moment of silence for
Johnny Cash -That makes it country -country indeed


Loretta's 18th birthday seemed to take a while to come
And on that day they were married at the Chapel o' Love
Jesse got a record deal and made it pretty big
Someone asked what made him country and this exactly what he said...