Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire take a walk down memory lane in the music video for their duet version of Johnson’s single “Dear Rodeo.”
During the clip, both country singers take turns walking the empty annals of a rodeo arena, remembering the careers that they had to say goodbye to. The video was filmed at the Tennessee Miller Coliseum in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Both Johnson and McEntire have personal histories with rodeo that they ultimately had to leave behind. In voiceover clips in the music video, each artist shares reflections on how they came to first love — and then leave — rodeo careers. McEntire, a former barrel racing competitor and self-described “third generation rodeo brat,” left her life in rodeo to pursue music once she realized that that’s where her talents lay.
“It’s kinda like rodeo released me — said, ‘Come on, you go do what you’re supposed to be doing over here,'” McEntire explains.
“The minute that I went to my first high school rodeo here in this arena, I fell in love with the whole show. The whole thing. I just wanted to be a part of it, some way, somehow” adds Johnson. “Looking back on it now, I think the bull was just a representation of something I was looking for. I didn’t know then that that was gonna lead me to the things I’ve done now.”
For an even more personal touch, snippets of actual footage from Johnson’s rodeo career are interspersed into the “Dear Rodeo” music video.
Johnson co-wrote the song with Dan Couch, and his solo version of it appears on his 2019 project, Ain’t Nothin’ To It. In 2018 and 2019, he offered especially poignant performances of it at RodeoHouston, the world’s largest rodeo and livestock exhibition.
Love Traditional Country Music? You’ll Love Cody Johnson:
These Country Artists Are Keeping Traditional Country Alive: