Chase Rice is opening up about his deeply personal song, “Connie Lou.” Written by Rice, along with Dan Couch and Oscar Charles, “Connie Lou” is a tribute to his own mother, and the love story she shared with his father, Daniel, who passed away in 2008.
“I wrote it because I was sitting in my breakfast room, looking at the picture of my dad that I used on the Cowboys record,” Rice tells Cowboys & Indians. “I realized in that moment that I’ve written a lot about my dad, but I’ve never written about my mom somehow over these years. And she’s been through a lot, losing him 18 years ago. I didn’t want it to be a sad song.”
“Connie Lou” says, “Connie Lou was a raised right Baptist / Air Force brat with a heart of gold / A little more wild than her sister, Katherine / Or so the story goes / Harold and Berniece prayed she’d find a got it together guy / But there wasn’t no doctors, wasn’t no lawyers at the rodeo that night.”
Rice’s father appears on the cover of his 2023 I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go to Hell record, a tribute to the man who helped shape him, both in his music and in life. With “Connie Lou,” Rice wanted to honor his mother in an uplifting, feel-good song.
“When I played it for her at Red Rocks, I said, ‘No mom, believe it or not, this is a happy song,'” Rice remembers. “We just wanted to write it happy. We wanted to write about a good memory of her and my dad, and look back over those years that she had with him and remember the good times.”
Believe it or not, Rice doesn’t come from a really musical family, at least when it comes to talent. But he was still raised to appreciate good country music.
“The only thing I had musical in my house was an old jukebox,” Rice reveals. “We’d listen to country, and that was back when George Strait, Garth Brooks and all of them were popping in the ’90s pretty hard.”
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Chase Rice Changes His Approach to Songwriting
Rice is, of course, known for writing “Cruise,” Florida Georgia Line‘s massive first single, out in 2012. After years of trying to write another hit like “Cruise,” Rice returned to writing songs on his terms.
“I always have loved writing stories that are true and real,” Rice explains. “A lot of my early hits weren’t that. It was just me trying to write hits. When I decided to stop doing that is when I think the music got really, really good. Telling stories about either my life or other people’s lives. No matter what the details are, we’ve all lived through a lot of the same stuff. So I love sitting down there with a guitar, and just telling a story. That’s my favorite way to write songs these days, and that’s where I’m at.”
Fortunately, Rice plans on doing it for a long, long time. Although he is taking much of 2026 off from touring, the 40-year-old plans on being part of country music for the rest of his life.
“I don’t want to do this till I’m 50,” Rice says. “I want to do this for the rest of my life, however long that is. It would be a tragedy for me if this thing continues to go, and people still say, ‘That’s the ‘Eyes On You’ guy.’ That’s not it for me. It’s fun to not follow the trends. Just write what makes you happy, ’cause that’s the way it should have been the whole time.”
Photo Credit: Tristan Wall