1994

Jason Aldean takes a comedic look back on his youth on this Thomas Rhett, Luke Laird and Barry Dean penned tune. "We've got a song on here that's called '1994' that is really unlike anything I've ever cut before," he told the Associated Press. "The object is to have people rolling on the floor laughing when they hear this thing for the first time. So it's almost like taking a little trip, a ride back to 1994 and some things that went on back then."

The song celebrates country hitmaker Joe Diffie, who was well known in the 1990s for his novelty songs and ballads. Aldean producer Michael Knox told Billboard magazine that as soon as he and the singer heard the demo of the song, "it was like, 'Dude, we have to cut this. This is the funniest, coolest thing I've ever heard.' Jason said, 'I know.'" "I was a junior in high school in '94," Aldean added, "and Joe Diffie was huge. I remember I went to the Cherry Blossom Street Party in Macon [Georgia], with Kenny Chesney on one stage and Joe Diffie on the other stage, and there was 5,000 people watching Joe Diffie and about 500 watching Kenny Chesney."

In a Songfacts interview with Barry Dean, he explained how this song came together: "Luke Laird and I write a lot together, and we were writing a lot with Thomas Rhett, the country artist. He's a wonderful writer and a wonderful young man. We had written all day on a very serious song. I don't know what it was called, but it was one of those country songs that addresses faith, values, life. It was meaty. We weren't quite done, and Luke had to go to a meeting pretty soon and so we were about to call it. And then Thomas said, 'Play one of your loops.' Luke always has a bunch of loops. Little drum loops and things like that. So he played something and TR started mumbling over it and I thought I heard him say, '1994.' Just the sound of it. I listen to vowels a lot. And I said, 'Did you say 1994?' And he goes, 'No, but my dad had a single on the radio in 1994.' Luke had on a Tracy Lawrence T-shirt, who was a '90s country artist, and Luke goes, 'Tracy Lawrence, 1994.' And I said, 'Nirvana is 1994.' And so, we're all throwing stuff out, that kind of deal. Then somebody else said Mark Chesnutt - we were just running through '90s people. And all of a sudden, somebody said Joe Diffie, and Luke went, 'Joe Diff-ay?' Like that. And we started going, 'Joe, Joe, Joe Diff-ay.' And then we started making jokes about it: 'Will the real Joe Diffie please stand up, please stand up.'"