9 Essential Ingredients in a ‘Bro-Country’ Song

Attention all inspiring singers and songwriters in the Greater Binghamton area.  If you have a hankering to write a good bro-country song, here are a few key ingredients you may want to include.

1) Endless Summer - In bro-country everyone is high on summertime and there’s always a fell/smell of whiskey in the air.

2)The weekend - In bro-country there are Fridays and there are Saturdays. The end. Every BRO wants to be Your Friday Night but none of them want to be your Monday morning.

3) Moonlight - For country bros, life only happens after dark (unless day drinking is involved). If they can be BAREFOOT IN THE MOONLIGHT that’s great; if they can SOAK UP A LITTLE MOONLIGHT; even better.

4) A girl - We are no longer in the age of Jolene or even a Boy Named Sue. For a song to be real bro-country the singer must directly address the object of his affection as nothing more than “girl.” She will have no name, no defining characteristics, no identity, but she will be a “girl.” Hey Girl, Southern Girl, Country Girl Shake It For Me bring the BRO Point home.

5) Drinking - In bro-country, drinking is joy; drinking is life. Before, country crooners could never find themselves at the bottom of the bottle, today’s Bro Country Stars (Blake, Jason, Luke, FGL) know that ice cold beer is really the only bro way to go.

6) Bro main dish -- Catfish - The bro dish of choice seems to be catfish. Luke Bryan in particular is pushing catfish as an entree, and he's pushing it hard. In THAT’S MY KIND OF NIGHT he’s excited about catching “up a little catfish dinner,” and in COUNTRY GIRL SHAKE IT FOR ME he encourages his “girl” to “shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek.”

7) Top bro activity --Tailgating - Few things bring a country bro more country bro joy than a tailgate. Lee Brice’s PARKING LOT PARTY is probably the purest bro-country tailgating anthem and includes such BRO FRIENDLY lyrics as “tailgate buzz just sipping on suds.”

8) The bro ride — A truck - Special bro points if you're driving the truck on a dirt road. A country-bro in a sedan is just a man in a car, he needs a truck for full bro effect. Kip Moore certainly knows what’s up. In SOMETHING BOUT A TRUCK  he drives to a “tailgate” on a “summer” night, with a girl toward a creek.

9) The bro rap bridge - Rap and country have worked out a strange, yet loving relationship.  Ol’ bro faithful Luke Bryan sings explicitly about the rap-country bromance with “Little Conway , a little T-Pain”

I wish I could take credit for this list but that would be some fine friends in Albany who put this together.  You must admit, it's pretty true and funny at the same time.  God Bless Country Music!