Raised on Country

Chris Young's "Raised On Country" tips the hat to artists such as Joe Diffie, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, George Strait, and many others he listened to growing up. I was raised on Merle, raised on Willie Got my honky-tonk attitude from Joe Diffie Daddy did too, it's family tradition When someone cranks it up you can't help but listen My upbringing sounds like George Strait singing 'Cause if you know me, I was raised on country Young credits the Nashville stars for forming the soundtrack to his life.

Young also references in the lyrics some familiar country imagery such as the "southern drawl in my talk," a "little pickup truck" and Tennessee whiskey. In the bridge, he nods to a lyric from Alan Jackson's 1992 classic, "Chattahoochee," when he sings, "Learned a lot about livin' and a little 'bout love."

Chris Young co-wrote the upbeat song while out on tour along with his I'm Comin Over and Losing Sleep co-producer Corey Crowder and Nashville songwriter Cary Barlowe (Lady Antebellum's "American Honey"). Young admitted that when they set out to pen the tune he had a pretty ambitious goal in mind. "This song is so crazy, because when I wrote 'Raised on Country,' we were actually out on the road," he explained to ABC Radio. "And we were like, 'You know, we really want just kind of a country anthem.'" "Those are so hard to write," he continued, "because it seems like they'd be super obvious, but you've just got to come at it in the perfect way. And from the minute we started writing this song, we knew we were onto something."