Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley Drop ‘Freedom Was a Highway’ Music Video

Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley‘s collaboration “Freedom Was a Highway” now has an official music video, with the two stars having dropped the new clip July 29. The video opens with Allen leaving church and getting in his car, stopping in the middle of the woods and getting out to explore the scenery. He finds a guitar on the ground and picks it up, and when he begins to play, his band appears.

For the song’s second verse, Paisley appears sitting on the bed of a truck, strumming his own guitar as he sings before he meets up with Allen under a bridge in the woods. They later change outfits for a performance with Allen’s band, a group of fans surrounding them as confetti rains down. “Freedom Was a Highway” was originally released as part of Allen’s 2020 album Bettie James and was released as a single in early 2021.

The two friends are currently performing the song out on the road on Paisley’s 2021 tour, an experience the West Virginia native hasn’t had before. “I’ve never had a tour with the person I had a duet out with,” Paisley said on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country.

“When Carrie and I had ‘Remind Me,’ she wasn’t on tour with me anymore,” he continued, referencing previous collaborators Carrie Underwood and Dierks Bentley. “She was way bigger than that,” Paisley goes on. “And it was like the same with I’ve had songs with Dierks, I’ve had songs with Alan Jackson, but I’ve never had them out on the road while I had that. And in this case, while it’s rising like this, to walk out there and we’ve got great entrances planned for you, you know what I mean? … We’re going to shoot him out of a cannon for the song, which hopefully you land by the first line.”

On The Bobby Bones Show, Allen and Paisley revealed that their collaboration was born after a hangout with Darius Rucker and Tim McGraw. “We were at Brad’s house last year after the Opry,” Allen began. “I kind of invited myself and he kind of invited me..and just me, him, Tim and Darius hanging out and we started playing songs. I played ‘Freedom Was A Highway,’ a new song, and Tim was like, ‘We should do a song together.’ I was like, ‘Cool,’ so I sent Brad—” “Instead of Tim…” Paisley interjected. “Yeah, instead of Tim, I sent Brad ‘Freedom Was A Highway,’” Allen continued, “and he said yeah and hopped on it.”