A pair of former rodeo riders team up to tribute the 8-second lifestyle in “Dear Rodeo,” a tender new duet between Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire.
A striking love letter to the guts and glory of a purely American pass time, the track finds Johnson and McEntire singing from the same heart, even though the project happened spontaneously. Both grew up competing in rodeos — Johnson as a bull rider in Texas and McEntire as a champion barrel racer in Oklahoma — and their fond memories seem to come through in the song. But with lots of lived-in authenticity and a boot stomping country sound, the mid-tempo anthem is actually about the changing season of life, and letting go of the past.
Co-written by Johnson and Dan Couch, “Dear Rodeo” was first released as a track off Johnson’s debut album, Ain’t Nothin’ To It, and then again recently as his new radio single. But McEntire specifically asked if he’d like to remake it as a duet.
“It was a thrill to get to sing ‘Dear Rodeo’ with Cody because we’re both from the rodeo world,” McEntire told reporters during a recent press event. “I grew up in a rodeo family, I’m a third-generation rodeo brat. So the song means a lot to me because I did leave rodeo to be in the country music business. I sure miss it.”
“The story behind ‘Dear Rodeo’ is more a story about life and less about rodeo,” Johnson added. “I feel like everybody has their own ‘Dear Rodeo’ story and when I found out that Reba was impacted by this song enough to want to do a duet, it was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my career. Reba adds a certain level of authenticity to this song that makes it so special. I love it when people sing songs about rodeo and cowboys, but there’s a little bit of a different feel when you know that somebody can walk the walk they’re talking. Neither one of us has a problem saying ‘Hey, this is where I come from, you can check the credentials, we’ve got the scars to prove it.’ I think that the honesty is really going to speak to people, and hopefully we can help people with this song.”
After a long and successful independent career, Cody Johnson’s first major-label album, Ain’t Nothin’ To It, was released in 2019 and arrived at Number One on Billboard’s Country albums chart. Likewise, his first Nashville single, “On My Way to You,” went Platinum. McEntire has recently debuted her new Spotify podcast, Living & Learning With Reba McEntire.
