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The original eventually reached the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 8, 2019. It’s Little Nas X’s way of saying that despite the naysayers, he’s still giving it a shot. "Old Town Road"by Lil Nas X is the anthem of 2019 but while everybody can sing the lyrics, what do they actually mean? Lil Nas X’s self-described ‘country rap’ anthem was released in late 2018 and rose to popularity with the help of the app TikTok where it inspired the Yeehaw Challenge meme. A remix of "Old Town Road" featuring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus was released in April 2019 and the song went on to peak at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed there for a record-breaking 19 weeks. Lil Nas X dropped out of school in his teens so that he could concentrate on his music.
Lil Nas X believes his opportunities are limitless, hence why he’s going to ride till he can’t no more. “I got the horses in the back” represents how Lil Nas X is traveling on his journey to success and his acknowledgement of the talent he has to give to the world. The lyrics “Ridin’ on a horse, ha / You can whip your Porsche” are meant to show he knows he has the talent to make it in hip-hop and doesn’t need anything special or complicated to make it.
What Do The Lyrics Of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" Mean?
He’s upgraded from a horse to a tractor and he’s wearing designer clothes like that “Cowboy hat from Gucci”, but he’s also committing adultery and doing drugs – suggesting the excesses of fame aren’t all that great. So, while the "Old Town Road"lyrics are kind of about horses, on a deeper level they’re also about the trappings of fame and having the determination to pursue your goals in the face of adversity. Little Nas X’s "Old Town Road" has been the song on everybody’s lips in 2019 but it’s not just about horses. EPD released body cam footage in its entirety from both officers that were inside the home. Police say they attempted life-saving measures before AMR arrived, but they were unsuccessful. According to a release, officers asked the man to put the knife down several times, but he refused.
This song received its popularity due to the memes and jokes on the social-media platform TikTok, where the track was published on the 2nd of December 2018. The users uploaded clips using snippets from the song with a hashtag "#oldtownroad". When the song was awarded its 14x Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America on January 9, 2021, it broke the record for the most Platinums a song has ever received. Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber's "Despacito" previously held the title, having gone platinum 13 times.
Things get wild in the second verse…
It's likely they faced pressure from the country music establishment, which has a tendency to promote a core group of artists from a small set of labels. There was a whiff of racism in the decision, but Billboard maintained that race wasn't a factor and stuck to their guns, keep the song off the chart even after the Billy Ray Cyrus version was released. After the song was removed from Billboard’s Country charts for “not enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” Lil Nas X released a remix of his song with Billy Ray Cyrus to spite the company.
Similarly to how the Atlanta duo iLOVEFRiDAY’s hit song “Mia Khalifa” blew up, clips on TikTok with the hashtag #oldtownroad have garnered millions of views. EPD officials say the officer who fired his gun will be placed on a three-day, paid administrative leave, which is their policy for any officer involved in a shooting. Police say the man advanced at officers with the knife still in his hand. That’s when they say a second officer pulled out his gun and shot the man at least one time. EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Officials with the Evansville Police Department confirm one person is dead after an officer involved shooting Friday morning.
Old Town Roadby Lil Nas X
I’m not going to lie and say I’m this huge country fan, but I respect the genre, because I respect every genre of music. According to Time, just last year the young artist was staying at his sister's home after he dropped out of college, a decision that left his parents less-than-pleased. He'd spend his days self-promoting his music, but soon, even that situation began to fall apart. But take away the controversy and the admittedly contagious hook, and you're left with some decidedly country-style lyrics. "Old Town Road" broke records as the longest-ever song to be at the top of the Billboard Top 100 charts, spending 17 weeks at number one. The song broke the record for the longest-running hip-hop #1 hit on the Hot 100.
"We didn't really have any connection. It was just him buying it from my beats store and me finding out after." Since 2019, “Old Town Road” has completely blown up and even won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video at the 2020 Grammys. Why was the song invoked in Lil Nas X’s controversial “Montero ” backlash?
He remembered listening to what Lil Nas X had done with "34 Ghosts IV," turning it into this other thing. He felt "strange at first. But I thought he did a good job with that." Other cameos include rappers Vince Staples, HaHa Davis and Jozzy as well as "Old Town Road" beatmaker YoungKio. It was made by the director Calmatic, whose work includes "Young, Dumb and Broke" for Khalid and "Bubblin'" for Anderson Paak. Cheated by his partner and unsatisfied by his material possessions, Lil Nas X is fed up with his hedonistic, consumeristic existence, so he decides to drop everything and take up the life of a cowboy.
When zeroing in on those catchy lyrics—which also include the defiant line "Can't nobody tell me nothin'"—X has revealed that the song represents something far more meaningful than you'd expect. According to an interview Lil Nas X did with Time, the lyrics send a message of perseverance and loneliness inspired by his personal life. Lil Nas X had a surprise viral hit in 2019 with the "Old Town Road" remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. Thanks to Eminem's song, the word "stan" was added to the Oxford American Dictionary in 2017. "Old Town Road" was finally toppled by Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" after 19 weeks at #1. The song's hook of "Can't nobody tell me nothin', "is a sort of jab to Lil Nas's parents who wanted him to get back into school.
It’s like you’re getting respect from people who’ve been doing this for some time. Traditionally, the Nashville music machine promotes their artists through country radio and other channels, which eventually lands their songs on Billboard's Country chart. An unsigned rapper storming the chart threw a wrench into this machine, and the following week "Old Town Road" vanished from the Country tally because Billboard ruled it ineligible. Billboard offered no official explanation, but later explained that the trap beat and lack of country airplay contributed to their decision.
On the tally dated July 6, 2019, "Old Town Road" surpassed Eminem's "Lose Yourself," The Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow," and Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again," which each spent 12 weeks at #1. Like most unknown artists, Lil Nas X wasn't signed to a label when he uploaded this song to YouTube and various streaming platforms. When it became a viral sensation, radio stations added it to their playlists, but had to get it by ripping the song from YouTube because there was no label to service it. With a hit on his hands, Lil Nas X found himself in a bidding war among multiple labels. Columbia Records won out and Lil Nas X inked an exclusive agreement with them on March 22, 2019. The song racked up huge streaming numbers in March 2019 and topped Billboard's Streaming chart dated April 6, when it also rose to #15 on the Hot 100.
The young rapper started to live with his sister as he was getting grief from his parents because they didn't feel he had a realistic future as a musician. Thanks to gaudy streaming numbers, this song reached the Hot 100 on March 16, 2019 at #83. The same week, it also placed at #36 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and #19 on the Country chart. The Hot 100 doesn't distinguish by genre, but Billboard has to designate which songs are eligible for the other two, which is typically determined by how they are promoted by their labels.
Viral hits often fall into the hip-hop bucket, but "Old Town Road" also has country elements and was allowed on the Country chart, which is far more conventional in terms of how songs are selected. The kind words stirred Lil Nas X to invite Cyrus into the studio to work on the remix, which he dropped on April 5, 2019. The country star sings lead on the intro and first chorus before crooning the third verse. Cyrus previously ventured into the hip-hop world when he released a rap remix of "Achy Breaky Heart," in 2014, working with rapper Buck 22. YoungKio's beat is based on a banjo run sampled from Nine Inch Nails' 2008 track "34 Ghosts IV," which he discovered while poking around YouTube. Nine Inch Nails released the song under a Creative Commons license, an unusual move that encouraged fans to rework the track as they pleased, but only for noncommercial use.
After the tweet dropped, some speculated there were some Easter eggs in "Old Town Road" about him being gay. In response, Lil Nas tweeted, "old town road is literally about horses." This wasn't the first #1 hit that started off as a meme; Baauer did it with "Harlem Shake," which rose to the top in 2013 after it was used in a series of memes spread on YouTube. It was the first tracking week since the release of Cyrus' remix. Lil Nas told Genius that after finding YoungKio's beat on YouTube in October 2018, he penned this song with a "loner cowboy kind of vibe" in which he's "running away from everything." YoungKio and Lil Nas X had no interaction on this track other than Lil Nas buying YoungKio's beat online.
