Brad Paisley is here to lift fans’ spirits during the coronavirus pandemic, dropping his upbeat new single, “No I in Beer,” at midnight on Wednesday. The plucky song features Paisley’s trademark guitar stylings, wordplay and frankness, inviting listeners to unite by drinking together. “‘Cause we’re all in this together / To me it’s all so clear / Drinking oughta be a team effort / There is no I in beer,” he proclaims. Paisley also manages a sports joke amid a season devoid of them, singing, “This was gonna be our season / We were the team to beat / Oh but not anymore / We’re looking at the score / In shock and disbelief.”
The West Virginia native explained that he wrote “No I in Beer” two years ago with writer Kelley Loveless. “It’s crazy as I look around at life right now how everybody is just doing what they can to get through this,” Paisley said. “And one of the things that’s so crazy are these drinking parties that people are having from their homes using technology to be together any way that they can . . . it’s like so strange in such a way that we are connected in a way that we’ve never been and one of the common denominators is alcohol.”
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“The fact that beer sales, alcohol sales are up, like, I hear, like 60 percent or something ridiculous,” he continued. “And I get it. It’s like people are utilizing this time to connect with people and to feel sort of solidarity as human beings in the face of this pandemic.”
Though the song was not written for the coronavirus pandemic, its message perfectly fits today’s uncertain times, and Paisley even uses the song’s last chorus to call out first responders, nurses and more, offering to buy them a beer. “To the farmers and the first responders / to the truck drivers shifting gears / every nurse that needs a break, let me buy you a drink / There ain’t no I in beer.” “No I in Beer” will head to country radio immediately and is Paisley’s first single since 2019’s “My Miracle.”
“This song, which wasn’t written for this pandemic, but it takes on new meaning for me when I hear it now, I just feel like, you know what, life sorta sucks right now in some ways and we gotta do what we can to get through this,” the 47-year-old said. “And if we’ve ever felt unified as Americans as citizens of the world, it’s in the fact that nobody loves what we’re going through but everybody’s willing to do what we have to do and one of those things is let’s be a team — let’s be a drinking team and that’s what we are right now.”
