4th Of July / He Stopped Loving Her Today - Medley

This song tells the story of a real road trip Jennings embarked on. When he wrote the song, his band Stargunn had just broken up, and he was sitting behind the drum kit at their rehearsal space. He wrote the band right on the spot.

Jennings was (using his word) "mimicking" a certain type of country song on this track - the kind where there's a girl and a car and a song on the radio. "It was at the height of that initial Red Dirt thing and we were doing shows with Cross Canadian Ragweed and Jason Boland, but there were so many of these bands that were popping up," he said in his Songfacts interview. "There were a lot of bands that sounded alike and I was kind of satirically making fun of - no [Laughs], satirically mimicking is what I mean to say - that sound. If they can do that, I can do that kind of thing." When the song became one his most popular tracks, he says he got what he deserved. "That song turned into what everyone focused on, which was kind of karma coming back at me for being a little bit snarky in doing it in that style."

George Jones, a cohort of Jennings' late father Waylon, sings on this track. In the song, Shooter is listening to the Ted Nugent song "Stranglehold," but gets sick of rock and flips to the country station, where Jones is playing. We find out what song Jones is singing at the end of this track, when we hear the radio and it's Jones singing "He Stopped Loving Her Today."