Brad Paisley is continuing to prase those who have been forced to work during the coronavirus pandemic. The 47-year-old has already praised grocery store workers and those in the medical field, but there’s another group of workers who he says deserve to be recognized: farmers.
“I’m guilty of, my entire life, reaching for an apple, and eating it, and not thinking about where it came from,” Brad told Sony Music. “Do you find yourselves –– I do right now –– picking up an apple and looking at the basket and there’s two apples left, going ‘Oh we need to get apples?’ Then realizing that may not be on the shelf when you go to Whole Foods; they may be out of that. I know they’re out of certain things. Cheese slices in our kitchen, I’m looking in there and it was like, ‘Oh we’re down to two.’ Last night, I was going to pull out a cheese slice and eat it, because I do that sometimes as something to eat. I looked and there was two left, and I realized those are probably going in a sandwich today for the boys, so I had to leave that, because I don’t know when we’re getting another packet of cheese slices.
“It’s different,” he continued. “It’s things we didn’t think about two months ago. So I am thankful for the farmers. They are in it, and they can’t stop, and they know that. It’s not like they get to shelter in place; they have to go out to work, they have to have workers picking the crops, and packaging things. It’s the epitome of an essential business.”
Brad’s current single, “No I in Beer,” was written before COVID-19, but became much more important after everyone was forced to self-isolate.
“There are a few things I changed,” Brad revealed. “For instance, the original opening line was ‘There’s a bunch of people coming over,’ yet another example of things you would never imagine don’t apply in life, all of a sudden don’t right now. So I had to rewrite that opening.”
“I actually like better what’s there,” he continued. “It’s interesting because when I wrote the song, it didn’t have this large scale, over-arching theme of unity. Well it did, but it didn’t have this feeling that it has. The same exact words, two months ago, ‘We’re all in this together, there’s no I in beer,’ two months ago that’s just a ‘Yay let’s party.’ Now it’s like defiant and a rallying cry almost –– like a fight song.”
