Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire Take the Reins in ‘Dear Rodeo’
These country stars still wonder what might have been.
Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire tip a hat to their first love in the video for “Dear Rodeo,” looking back at what might have been.
Directed by Shaun Silva and filmed in the Tennessee Miller Coliseum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the adrenaline-filled clip highlights a life both Johnson and McEntire left behind. Each was once a real-life rodeo competitor — Johnson was a bull rider and McEntire was famously a barrel racer — and the clip features actual footage and photos of both star’s former career. But even though those days are gone for good, rodeo is still a part of their dreams. Once a cowboy, always a cowboy, the video says.
“It’s kind of like rodeo released me,” McEntire says in the video, speaking of how she moved away from competition to focus on singing. “It said, ‘Come on. You go do what you’re supposed to be doing over here.’”
“The minute that I went to my first high school rodeo here in this arena, I fell in love with the whole show, the whole thing,” Johnson adds, in between shots of the duo singing in the center of an empty arena. “Looking back now, I think the bull was just a representation of something I was looking for. I didn’t know then that that was going to lead me to the things I have done now.”
With its emotional harmony and gripping country presentation, “Dear Rodeo” was co-written by Cody Johnson with Dan Couch, and featured on his chart-topping major label debut, Ain’t Nothin’ To It. In another tie to the country legend, Johnson also recently covered McEntire’s “Whoever’s in New England,” and she’s been staying busy as well. McEntire co-hosted the 54th annual CMA Awards with Darius Rucker in November.
