"Ride" is a song written by Michael Davey, Andrew Dorff and Chris Robbins, and recorded by American

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, ...

singer

Martina McBride Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff, born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer-songwriter and record producer. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material. McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocat ...

. It was released in November 2008 as the first single from her album '' Shine'', produced by her and

Dann Huff Dann Lee Huff (born November 15, 1960) is an American record producer and songwriter. For his work as a producer in the country music genre, he has won several awards, including the ''Musician of the Year'' award in 2001, 2004, and 2016 at the Co ...

Content

"Ride" is an up-tempo song with a motivational theme. In it, the narrator uses a

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

as a metaphor for life.

Critical reception

The song received a "thumbs down" from Engine 145 reviewer Juli Thanki, who commented that "though catchy,

he song He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

is a little low on cogency–not to mention originality." She also criticized it for being a "message song" in the line of McBride's other 2000s releases. She did, however, make note of McBride's vocal performance, saying that it showed emotion and was not reliant on "overly dramatic belting". Kevin Coyne of Country Universe, however, gave the song an A− rating. His review also describes McBride's vocal performance favorably: "McBride gives the song a straightforward performance that’s rough around the edges in all of the right ways." "Ride" was nominated for Female Video of the Year in the 2009

CMT Music Awards The CMT Music Awards is a fan-voted awards show for country music videos and television performances. The awards ceremony is held every year in Nashville, Tennessee, and broadcast live on the CMT (Country Music Television) channel. Voting takes p ...

Music video

The music video for "Ride" was directed by Kristin Barlowe, and was released on February 2, 2009. In the video, people are seen looking up at Martina McBride's video on a rooftop billboard. On the billboard, Martina McBride is shown performing her song into a microphone in front of a green screen as high-speed images of weather elements and traffic cycle behind her. This excites the pedestrians, and they begin dancing, jumping on cars, and enjoy themselves. The video was ranked number 41 on GAC's Top 50 Videos of the Year.

Chart performance

"Ride" debuted on the

Hot Country Songs 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 at number 43 in November 2008. The song peaked at number 11 in April 2009, just missing the Top 10.

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 2008 singles 2008 songs Martina McBride songs Song recordings produced by Dann Huff RCA Records singles Songs written by Andrew Dorff