Country music is full of songs that still sound good decades later. A testament to the songwriting that the genre is known for, it's common to hear songs that are decades old, alongside newer, fresher songs.
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We picked four of our favorite classic country songs that still sound fresh today.
1. "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett
It's hard to believe that "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" is more than 20 years old. The song, written by Jim "Moose" Brown and Don Rollins, came out in 2003, on Jackson's Greatest Hits Volume II album. The song is about quitting work early to have a drink - subject matter that is just as relevant in 2025 as it was 22 years ago, maybe more.
"I was writing with Jim 'Moose' Brown one morning, and he mentioned that he was playing keyboards on a project by a new artist named Colt Prather, and that Colt was looking for a song with a Buffett vibe," Rollins tells American Songwriter. "I mentioned the title that I had and we agreed that it was a good fit for that style. We wrote the song in about two hours."
2. "Walkaway Joe" by Trisha Yearwood
Who can forget the angst of hearing Trisha Yearwood's "Walkaway Joe" for the first time? Out in 1992 from Yearwood's Hearts in Armor album, Don Henley joins Yearwood for the song. "Walkaway Joe" details a teenage romance gone very, very wrong.
Perhaps surprisingly, "Walkaway Joe" almost became a hit for another country act instead.
"'Walkaway Joe' was one of those songs that the Judds actually had on hold," Yearwood reveals on I Miss...90s Country Radio With Nick Hoffman on Apple Music Country. "And then the Judds went through that breakup because Naomi was ill and they disbanded, basically. And Wynonna was getting ready to embark on a solo career. So all of the songs the Judds had on hold went back into the pool, and 'Walkaway Joe' is one of those songs."
3. "Fishin' in the Dark" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
In the 38 years since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band first released "Fishin' in the Dark" in 1987, several artists have covered it in their live shows. Among those is Garth Brooks, who performed it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2024. The allure of the song is simply that it's that good. Written by Wendy Waldman and Jim Photoglo, the song remained a mainstay in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band shows in the decades since then.
"Fishin' in the Dark" also had a happy resurgence years later, when the song became available on iTunes.
"Slowly but surely, the stuff started to leak out on the Internet a couple of years back," lead singer Jeff Hannah says (via HuffPost.com). "And apparently, people keep responding to the song because we now have a gold digital single, which we think is really cool. We have half a million downloads for the song, which we think is great for a bunch of old geezers like us."
4. "I'm a Survivor" by Reba McEntire
Reba McEntire's "I'm a Survivor," out in 2001, will go down in history as one of the best country anthems of all time, and with good reason. Released in 2001, the song was written by Shelby Kennedy and Phillip White. Surprisingly, it wasn't McEntire they were thinking of at the time. Instead, they were focused on the hit TV show, Survivor, instead.
"We wrote that song in about 30 minutes," White tells The Tennessean. "I happened to throw it on the back end of a [demo] session and Cindy Owen, who was working for Reba at the time, and who's friends with (Shelby's wife) sent the song to Reba up in New York."
Ironically, "I'm a Survivor" became part of another TV show instead. "I'm a Survivor" was the theme song for McEntire's hit TV show, Reba.
