Finally performing the song they wrote over 20 years ago.
In many ways, Jamey Johnson is a bit of an enigma, being one of those artists who seemingly bridge the gap between multiple different scenes and subgenres in country music today. Over the past few years, Johnson has seemingly effortlessly swung between the alliterative scene and the mainstream, making appearances with the likes of Riley Green on tour, Ella Langley and Randy Houser while also teaming up with Kaitlin Butts, Marcus King, Lily Meola and more.
As we know, he’s scored a few hits in his day at country radio, with “In Color” being a Top 10 entry and his debut single, “The Dollar,” being a Top 15 hit. As a songwriter, Johnson has penned hits for other artists like George Strait’s “Give It Away” and Trace Adkins’ infamous “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.”
Though the song typically gets lambasted for its admittedly ridiculous lyrics and oftentimes gets credit as the unofficial start of bro-country upon its release, there’s no denying that the song is pretty fun and, most importantly to Johnson and cowriters, Randy Houser and Dallas Davidson, pretty successful.
Appearing on Adkins’ 2005 album, Songs About Me, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” was released as the third and final single from the record on October 3, 2005. Though it wasn’t originally intended as a single, the track began receiving unsolicited airplay and debuted on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart at #58 in April 2005. By February 2006, after officially being sent to radio, it would peak all the way at #2, being blocked from the top spot by Carrie Underwood’s monster six-week #1, “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”
Since then, it’s experienced a whole lot of success, often being played at nearly all bars and dance venues that have even a hint of country flair. From a numbers perspective, it’s been a smash in the streaming age. Along with its 89 million streams on Spotify alone, the track has sold over three million units, receiving a 3x platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Back to Johnson and Houser writing the track, back on December 13th, the pair teamed up to FINALLY perform the track at a show in Las Vegas. And you can say what you will about the quality of the song itself and the potential floodgates it opened up in terms of bro-country, but I can’t help but love the pair finally performing the song live together. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s made Johnson, who has been a positive influence on a ton of artists throughout the decades, a whole lot of money.
Watch here:
How “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” Was Written
Earlier last year, Dillon Weldon, host of the Drifting Cowboy podcast, asked Johnson about the track and how he, Dallas Davidson, and Randy Houser came up with the idea for such an absurd title.
The idea for the tune came up while they were drinking at the former Wildhorse Saloon, a famous downtown Nashville bar that is now Luke Combs’ Category 10 bar.
“So yeah, we were at the Wildhorse Saloon one night. Randy Houser, Dallas Davidson, and I got together to drink some beer, and Rob Hatch was the bartender. He was a good bartender, but he would turn in some beer spills all night. Turns out he was spilling all of it in our glasses.
We had a good deal worked out there. We were sitting over there drinking one night, watching that dance floor at Wildhorse Saloon. Every now and then, you could walk in there, and it was like a big old corporate party, and it was just kind of weird. The vibe was a bunch of people who worked together. Now they were going to hang out and drink together and watch each other dance and sh**.”
Johnson shares that this was the kind of clientele at Wildhorse that night. As the evening progressed, just as they had expected, the corporate folks began to loosen up, which led to some great people-watching.
“It took a few drinks to get in them to get it going, and we were sitting there catching the first parts of it, really busting loose. I was watching this gal that had quite a derrière. I mean, just in sheer volume. Quite a few ham sandwiches went into that.”
Now, Johnson had quite a way with words during that interview with Weldon, describing the behind that inspired the song, but during a more recent interview with Big D & Bubba, he gave another poetic answer when describing the velocity of this woman’s behind.
“A model, who had come to town to party for a couple of days. And this gal, she was unloadin’. She had a butt that looked like you just rammed a couple of beach balls down inside a pair of jeans. I was watching her… I was watchin’ her workin’ that thing around.”
At this point, the men in the room are giggling like high school little boys who just saw their first pair of boobs. Johnson continues:
“She changed the order of the dance floor like everything was coming this way, they had to turn around and go back. She was up there dropping it down and hitting the floor with it and everything else, and I thought, ‘Damn!’ And about that time, either Randy or Dallas, one of them, said, ‘Badonkadonk.’ And the other one said, ‘Honky Tonk Bandonkadonk.’ And when I heard that, I just looked at them both and I said, I’m in…’”
The three men left the bar shortly after to go pen what would later become a cult classic. Johnson described in the Drifting Cowboy episode that the only actual hang-up the men had was on the “slam your grandma” and “Donkey Kong” lines, which is pretty funny that was a hang up given the ridiculous nature of the subject matter to start with:
“The only hang-up in it was when Dallas said ‘Donkey Kong.’ I kind of, ‘Come on, man? What is that?’ He was like, ‘Nah, dude, you had this line like..’ My line was ‘slap your grandma,’ because it was something I heard growing up. I mean, we were just laughing at each other. Especially at my hang-ups on whether or not to put ‘Donkey Kong’ in this song.”
