"Are You Ready for the Country?" is a song written by

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay ...

and released on his 1972 ''Harvest'' album. The track features Young on piano backed by the studio band dubbed

The Stray Gators The Stray Gators was the name given by Neil Young to his supporting musicians from 1971 to 1973 and who backed him on the albums ''Harvest'' (1972) and ''Time Fades Away'' (1973). It consisted of Jack Nitzsche (piano), Ben Keith (steel guitar), Ti ...

, comprising

Jack Nitzsche Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche ( '; April 22, 1937 – August 25, 2000) was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He first came to prominence in the early 1960s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spec ...

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

Ben Keith Bennett Keith Schaeufele (March 6, 1937 – July 26, 2010), better known by his stage name Ben Keith, was an American musician and record producer. Known primarily for his work as a pedal steel guitarist with Neil Young, Keith was a fixture of ...

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

Tim Drummond Timothy Lee Drummond (20 April 1940 – 10 January 2015) was an American musician from Canton, Illinois. Drummond's primary instrument was bass guitar and he toured and recorded with many notable artists, including Conway Twitty, Bob Dylan, James ...

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

, and

Kenny Buttrey Aaron Kenneth Buttrey (April 1, 1945 – September 12, 2004) was an American drummer and arranger. According to Country Music Television, CMT, he was "one of the most influential session musicians in Nashville history". Buttrey was born in Nashvi ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

. Backing vocals on the track are by

David Crosby David Van Cortlandt Crosby (born August 14, 1941) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. They got ...

and

Graham Nash Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, photographer, and activist. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and the supergroups Crosby, Stills ...

. The recording was made in a studio set up in a barn on Young's ranch.

Lyrics and music

According to Sam Inglis, the "country" in the title is never made explicit, and while certainly not a country like Belgium and it seems like it could be in the United States south like contemporary Young songs "

Southern Man In New Zealand, the southern man is a stereotypical male from the more rural South Island, well used to the solitude and conditions of open mountain or hill country, and completely out of his depth in the city. He is usually depicted as wearing a ...

" and "Alabama," the lyrics are not explicitly political like those songs. Rather than addressing issues like

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, the lyrics of "Are You Ready for the Country" are more about generalized dread. Lyrics like "I was talkin' to the preacher, said, 'God was on my side'/Then I ran into the hangman, he said, 'It's time to die'" imply that there is more to the story, and perhaps a more interesting backstory, than what is explicitly stated, and hint at an organized religion theme. The title may be Young asking his audience if they are willing to follow him into

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

, although Inglis states that the

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

is more

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

than country.

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

critic Matthew Greenwald states that the arrangement provides a sense of whimsy, highlighting Young's "funky" piano and Nitzsche's "lazy" slide guitar. Ken Bielen describes the

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

as "punchy" and says it works well with the song's "

sing-a-long Sing-along, also called community singing or group singing, is an event of singing together at gatherings or parties, less formally than choir singing. One can use a songbook. Common genres are folk songs, patriotic songs, kids' songs, spiritual ...

vocal character." Bielen also comments on the "rustic" quality added by Nitzsche's slide guitar.

Critical reception

Rolling Stone Magazine ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its cov ...

'' critic John Mendelsohn said the song seemed like "an in-joke throwaway intended for the amusement of certain of Neil's superstar pals."

Waylon Jennings version

The song was released as a single by American

artist

Waylon Jennings Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music. Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...

in 1976, the second single from the album named after the song, '' Are You Ready for the Country''. Jennings changed the lyrics of the chorus from "Are you ready for the country/Because it's time to go" to "Are you ready for the country?/Are you ready for me?" The Jennings single reached #7 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart.

Chart performance

Waylon Jennings

Hank Williams, Jr. featuring Eric Church

References

{{authority control 1972 songs 1976 singles 2015 singles Neil Young songs Waylon Jennings songs Hank Williams Jr. songs Eric Church songs Songs written by Neil Young Song recordings produced by Elliot Mazer Reprise Records singles RCA Records singles Big Machine Records singles Song recordings produced by Neil Young