www.whiskeyriff.com
Jamey Johnson Couldn’t Care Less About Any Criticism Over Co-Writing Trace Adkins’ “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”
Jamey Johnson has helped pen many prolific hits like “In Color,” “What a View,” “High Cost Of Living,” and… “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk?”
By now, most country fans are familiar with the fact that the famed songwriter and legendary outlaw is responsible for helping write the Trace Adkins tune “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” The cult classic about a woman’s derrière is one that most country fans, and music fans across the board, have been guilty of singing a time or two, but in no way do the lyrics of “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” highlight the masterful songwriting of Jamey Johnson… unless you really have a liking for the “slap your grandma” line. That one is pretty solid, I’ll give it to Johnson.
Johnson, being one of the names behind “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” is a prime example that even the most prolific songwriters need to let loose and have some fun writing here and there. However, even with that thought process, it still makes you wonder as a fan how such juvenile lyrics can come from the same mind that produces thought-provoking and emotional lyrics.
Earlier this year, Dillon Weldon, host of the Drifting Cowboy podcast, asked Johnson about the tune and how the heck he, Dallas Davidson, and Randy Houser came up with the idea for this silly yet catchy tune. 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.”
I mean, Dallas Davidson does have a point. If “slap your grandma” made it into the song, “Donkey Kong” should too.
While I think I speak for the collective when saying we all have enjoyed belting out the lyrics to “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” more times than we’d probably like to admit, there is one burning question on many fans’ minds… Does Jamey Johnson regret penning such a silly tune?
Big D & Bubba asked Johnson if he ever takes heat for penning such a silly tune, to which Johnson replies:
“No, I didn’t care, and I still don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me at all.”
A true outlaw does not care what other people think, and Jamey Johnson is just that.
@bigdandbubba♬ original sound – bigdandbubba
Fire it up before you go.
The post Jamey Johnson Couldn’t Care Less About Any Criticism Over Co-Writing Trace Adkins’ “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
