Country music is known mostly for its storytelling. Country music videos have often told incredible stories, ones that couldn't be told in a song.
Videos by Wide Open Country
With that in mind, we picked four of the most memorable country music videos of all time.
1. Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss, "Whiskey Lullaby"
Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss told quite the story in "Whiskey Lullaby," out in 2004. The song, written by Bill Anderson and Jon Randall, is eerie enough, with lines like, "He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger / And finally drank away her memory / Life is short but this time it was bigger / Than the strength he had to get up off his knees."
But the video, which is almost seven minutes long, tells an entirely different story. Rick Schroder directs and also stars in the video. It tells a tragic tale of a man who comes home from World War II to find his girlfriend with another man. Devastated, he drinks himself to death, as does the woman, who is overcome by guilt over her infidelity.
2. "I Drive Your Truck" by Lee Brice
It's hard to think of a sadder story than Lee Brice's "I Drive Your Truck." Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington and Jimmy Yeary, the song is about the grief of a brother who lost his brother while serving in the military. Devastatingly, the song is based on a true story, about a man who drove his son's truck, after his son was killed in Afghanistan.
"It became a personal song to me the very first time that I heard it. I thought about my granddaddy, and what I would like to do with the video," Brice reveals (via Songfacts). "Since it was so personal to me, I asked my brother to be the actual actor, the 'star' of the video. He did an amazing job on it."
3. Reba McEntire and Vince Gill, "The Heart Won't Lie"
Reba McEntire and Vince Gill released "The Heart Won't Lie" in 1993. Based on the movie, An Officer And A Gentleman, Gill plays a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, while McEntire is a US Navy Officer Navy Candidate, when the two develop feelings for each other.
McEntire had already starred in the movie Tremors when "The Heart Won't Lie" came out. Her love of acting is what likely inspired the four-day video shoot.
"He doesn't really care for videos and this one turned into a four-day shoot," McEntire says (via Alchetron.com). "It was great to spend time with Vince and get to watch him do what he called his Gomer Pyle imitation for his character. But I had to promise him that if he ever does another song with me, he will never have to suffer through a four-day video shoot again!"
4. "Hang In There Girl" by Ashley McBryde
Ashley McBryde released a trilogy of songs, "One Night Standards," "Martha Divine" and "Hang In There Girl." The songs together tell a story of a a philandering man, whose adulteress ends up deceased. But it's "Hang In There Girl" that brings the wild story to an even wilder conclusion. The video shows the woman and McBryde burying the body. They then take the car they carried the body to be impounded.
McBryde was inspired to write the song after seeing a young girl walking by herself on a road near her house.
"I grew up on a cattle farm," McBryde tells The Boot. "I'm really proud of how I grew up, but I remember being 15 and being frustrated with the world. And I thought if I could just pull over and tell her that, 'In three years, you're gonna have a car, and you're gonna get out of here. You're gonna look back really fondly on growing up in the middle of nowhere. If you'll just hang in there, you're going to be okay.'
"But then I thought about how creepy it would be if I pulled over and told this girl that it was okay to be frustrated and to hang in there -- total stranger," she adds. "So then a couple days later, I went to Jeremy Bussey who I wrote 'Girl Going Nowhere' with, and told him that story. So we wrote 'Hang in There.'"
