This Is Country Music

This is the first single from country music singer Brad Paisley's eighth studio album. Paisley described it to The Boot as a "love song to my fans, who live all our songs every day, and to this industry, which produces this music that does become the soundtrack to people's lives."

Paisley wrote the song with frequent collaborator Chris DuBois. The song addresses topics that frequently crop up in Country music. DuBois told the story of the song in an interview with The Boot: "This song was Brad's idea. When Brad and I write songs, it's never a one day event. This song is a good example of that. We talked about it on the phone first. He called me up one day, and he said, 'I want to write a song called 'This Is Country Music.'' I remember thinking, 'Hmm ... OK, but what would it be about?' He told me it would be about all the things he had found himself saying in interviews over the years about country music - what he loves, what inspires him - all of that.He wanted to write a song about what makes country music as a format unique from all the other genres of music. There are no topics that are forbidden, unless they are risqué. That's where the idea stemmed from. When we got together to write the song, the first line he came up with was the opening line, "You're not supposed to say the word 'cancer' in a song." That really set the tone for the rest of the song and what we want it to represent. What's interesting about the song is we had so many things we wanted to talk about. We tried to touch on so many things, but there are so many things we couldn't bring up because we had to keep it under four minutes long. We had a couple verses that didn't make the record because we couldn't fit them in."

Paisley debuted the song at the Country Music Association (CMA) awards show on November 10, 2010. Said DuBois to The Boot: "We love how the song turned out, and we were beyond thrilled after Brad debuted it on the CMA Awards, and the reaction it received from the audience."