Country Music Truck Songs: How Many Are There-Which Pickup Has The Most?
They say all country music has lyrics with trains, momma, God, and broken hearts in them somewhere. But you can also add pickup trucks and truck driving, too. Oh, and drinking. Can’t forget drinking. But believe it or not a financial services website in the UK just did an analysis of country songs to see how many songs have pickup trucks in them and which singer has the most references. We don’t know why a financial services website did this but let’s move onto what they found.
The folks at money.co.uk poured over 16,000 country-western songs starting from the 1950s. Of those, they analyzed 4.16% had trucks as the main subject. Country singer Justin Moore uses truck references in almost 30% of his songs. He wins in that category, for sure. But, let’s drill down to specific songs.
“The Truck Got Stuck,” had “truck” in it 29 times
The Shania Twain song “The Truck Got Stuck,” had “truck” in it 29 times for 6.56% of its total word count. Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” is the most-streamed with trucks in the lyrics at 200+ million. Number two is Blake Sheldon’s “Boys ‘Round Here” with 130+ million streams. Number three and four are Keith Urban’s “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” and Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee.” In this same category, Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic” fills out the bottom of the Top Five.
Truck wars between Ford and Chevy have been going on forever. When it comes to trucks owners are very loyal. The same comes out in Country lyrics. For the last ten years, Chevy leads Ford in lyric references. That’s the opposite of actual popularity where the F-150 wins over Chevy and has for 40 years. Some surmise it is because it’s easier to rhyme with “Chevy” as opposed to “Ford” but who knows? We’re not going there…
Trucks get referenced in 6.25% of Country lyrics so far in this century
Interestingly, trucks get referenced in 6.25% of Country lyrics so far in this century. From 1950-1999 the analysts found truck references in only 1% of songs it surveyed. So trucks have become much more of a go-to subject for Country songs today. And the year with the most truck references was 2019.
What does this all mean? Other than truck songs being made more often not much. But it is fun to reminisce and come up with your own list. As for me; “Me and my old pickup, these days we don’t pick up much.”
