"Ticks" is a song co-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, ...

artist

Brad Paisley Bradley Douglas Paisley (born October 28, 1972) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Starting with his 1999 debut album ''Who Needs Pictures'', he has released eleven studio albums and a Christmas compilation on the Arista Nashvil ...

. It was released in March 2007 as the first single from his 2007 album '' 5th Gear''. The song reached number one on the US '' Billboard'' Hot Country Songs chart. Paisley wrote this song with

Kelley Lovelace John Kelley Lovelace is an American songwriter known mainly for his work with country music artist Brad Paisley. He has written several of Paisley's singles, including the number 1 hits "He Didn't Have to Be" (Paisley's first number 1), "The World ...

and Tim Owens. This song was featured as a downloadable track for the video game '' Guitar Hero: World Tour''.

Content

The song's main character is at a bar, attempting to pick up a date. In doing so, he uses several humorous pickup lines, such as "I'd like to check you for ticks." Paisley stated that the song is not about blood-sucking arachnids but rather about a guy flirting with a gal. Paisley was inspired to write the song from experience working on a farm. “Working out here on the farm, I literally have to check for ticks every time I come in from the woods or the fields,” he notes. “Now, if a young guy who lives in the country were to take a girl into the woods for any reason, it would totally cross his mind that she’s going to have to check for ticks when they come back out. So it seems that an enterprising guy would at least consider that he could offer to check for her.”

Critical reception

Kevin John Coyne of ''Country Universe'' gave the song a C− grade. While saying that the production was good, he went on to say " he songmay be the very first mainstream country single to completely skeeze imout."

Personnel

Ron Block Ronald Franklin Block (born July 30, 1964) is an American banjo player, guitarist, and singer-songwriter, best known as a member of the bluegrass band Alison Krauss & Union Station. He has won 14 Grammy Awards, 6 International Bluegrass Music A ...

- banjo *Randle Currie - steel guitar * Eric Darken -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

*Kevin "Swine" Grantt -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar ...

*Wes Hightower - background vocals *Gary Hokker - baritone guitar,

12 string guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...

*Gordon Mote - clavinet *

- lead vocals,

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

, acoustic guitar, Tic tac bass *Ben Sesar - drums *Justin Williamson - mandolin

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

2007 singles 2007 songs Brad Paisley songs Songs written by Brad Paisley Song recordings produced by Frank Rogers (record producer) Arista Nashville singles Songs written by Kelley Lovelace Songs written by Tim Owens {{2000s-country-song-stub