"Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" is a song written 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, ...

duo

Big & Rich Big & Rich is an American country music duo composed of Big Kenny and John Rich, both of whom are songwriters, vocalists, and guitarists. Before the duo's foundation, Rich was bass guitarist in the country band Lonestar, while Kenny was a solo ...

. It was released in April 2004 as the second single from their debut album '' Horse of a Different Color''. It reached number 11 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' US Country chart. The song received wide exposure when

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

featured the song in commercials for its coverage of the

2004 World Series of Poker The 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe after Harrah's Entertainment purchased the casino and the rights to the tournament in January. Harrah's announced that future WSOP tournaments will be held in a moving circuit of ...

. It was also featured in the ''

Boston Legal ''Boston Legal'' is an American legal drama and comedy drama television series created by former lawyer and Boston native David E. Kelley, produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for ABC. The series aired from October 3, 2004, t ...

'' episode "Death Be Not Proud". Big & Rich also released a remixed dance version of the song which appeared on their compilation '' Big & Rich's Super Galactic Fan Pak''. They performed this remixed version at the CMT Video Music Awards in 2005. The song was also featured in a

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...

commercial that was aired during

Super Bowl XLI Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

and the

49th Annual Grammy Awards The 49th Annual Grammy Awards was a ceremony honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2005 and ending September 30, 2006 in the United States. The awards were handed out on Sunday, February 11, 2007 at the Staples Ce ...

. The song appears on the game

Karaoke Revolution Country ''Karaoke Revolution'' and its sequels are video games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, GameCube, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360, developed by Harmonix and Blitz Games and published by Konami in its Bemani line of music games. The Original Concept f ...

, as well as in the 2012 film ''

Magic Mike ''Magic Mike'' is a 2012 American comedy-drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, and Matthew McConaughey. The plot revolves around Adam, a 19-year-old who enters the wor ...

''.

Content

The song is a fusion of

country rock Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal s ...

and

country rap Country rap (or country hip hop and sometimes hick hop) is a fusion genre of popular music, blending country music with hip hop–style singing or rapping. History Prototypes Early influences on the emergence of country rap as a distinct genre ...

. The first two verses detail "Big" Kenny Alphin and John Rich's arrival into Nashville, going into a bar, "passing out hundred-dollar bills" and, "buying the bar a double round of

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

." They vow that Nashville is "never gonna be the same." They ride around Nashville on horses, while everyone else says to "save a horse" and "ride a cowboy."

Music video

The music video for the song was filmed in Nashville during the summer of 2004. Big & Rich, other members of the

MuzikMafia The MuzikMafia was an informal collection of American country music artists, founded in October 2001 in Nashville, Tennessee by Big Kenny and John Rich (musician), John Rich (who compose the duo Big & Rich), along with Jon Nicholson and Cory Gierma ...

, including

Gretchen Wilson Gretchen Frances Wilson (born June 26, 1973) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She made her debut in March 2004 with the Grammy Awards, Grammy Award-winning single "Redneck Woman", a number-one hit on the ''Billboard (magazine) ...

and

Cowboy Troy Troy Lee Coleman III (born December 18, 1970), better known by his stage name Cowboy Troy, is an American rapper and singer. He is best known as a representative of the country rap genre. He has released seven studio albums and one EP, including t ...

, as well as dancers, marching bands, and other groups of people, parade on the

Shelby Street Bridge The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge (previously called the Shelby Street Bridge or Shelby Avenue Bridge) is a truss bridge that spans the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The bridge spans and is one of the longest p ...

in Nashville. It was directed by David Hogan. The video caused damage to the bridge, dents and scuff marks, which costed $23,000 in repairs.

One World Gear controversy

In April 2007, the song was parodied by T-shirt manufacturer One World Gear, who began to offer a series of products on CafePress.com featuring

snowclone A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow. H ...

s of the slogan "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy", in which the word "cowboy" was replaced with the name of any one of 177 different nationalities, including "American". The version of the T-shirt featuring the slogan "Save a Horse, Ride a Taiwanese" was singled out as "racially discriminatory" and "insulting to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

" by

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

and

Hong Kong media Hong Kong's media consists of several different types of communications of mass media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, websites and other online platforms. Overview Hong Kong is home to many of Asia's biggest media entities ...

Chart performance

"Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" debuted at number 58 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of April 24, 2004. It has sold 2.087 million copies as of April 2013.

Personnel

From ''Horse of a Different Color'' liner notes. * Brian Barnett – drums *

Big Kenny William Kenneth Alphin (born November 1, 1963), best known by his stage name Big Kenny, is an American country music singer. He and John Rich comprise the duo Big & Rich, who recorded four studio albums and charted fifteen singles on the '' Bill ...

– vocals * Dennis Burnside – keyboards *

John Rich John Rich (born January 7, 1974) is an American country music singer-songwriter. From 1992 to 1998, he was a member of the country music band Lonestar, in which he played bass guitar and alternated with Richie McDonald as lead vocalist. After d ...

– vocals, acoustic guitar *

Adam Shoenfeld Adam Shoenfeld (born April 29, 1974) is a professional guitarist, songwriter and producer based in Nashville, TN. Primarily focused on modern country music, his guitar playing has been featured on over 200 albums, and is closely associated with Bi ...

– electric guitar * Justin Tocket – bass guitar *

Jonathan Yudkin Jonathan Yudkin is an American multi-instrumentalist who is a proficient player of banjo, violin, mandolin, and other stringed instruments. He is a Nashville-based session musician, record producer, arranger, and band leader. Biography Growin ...

–

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{Big & Rich Songs about cowboys and cowgirls 2004 singles Big & Rich songs Songs written by Big Kenny Songs written by John Rich Song recordings produced by Paul Worley Song recordings produced by John Rich Music videos directed by David Hogan Warner Records Nashville singles 2004 songs Songs about horses