Reba McEntire and Cody Johnson Team for New Music Video for ‘Dear Rodeo’

Reba McEntire joined Cody Johnson for a version of Johnson’s song “Dear Rodeo” in October, and the duo has now shared a music video for the song, which was filmed at the Tennessee Miller Coliseum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The clip features McEntire and Johnson singing in the empty arena, as well as footage from Johnson’s former career as a bull rider and photos of McEntire’s time as a barrel racer.

“Dear Rodeo” is a letter to the rodeo industry written as if to a former lover, reflecting on time spent together and whether they could ever go back to how things were. McEntire instantly related to the song when she first heard it, prompting her to join Johnson on a new duet version.

“It’s kind of like rodeo released me,” she says at the end the video. “It said, ‘Come on. You go do what you’re supposed to be doing over here.’” Johnson added, “The minute that I went to my first high school rodeo here in this arena, I fell in love with the whole show, the whole thing. Looking back now, I think the bull was just a representation of something I was looking for. I didn’t know then that that was going to lead me to the things I have done now.”

Johnson recently told PopCulture.com and other media that someone from his record label shared the song with McEntire and “she was really the one that kind of jumped on board.”

“She’s so gracious because she was like, ‘Thank you so much for letting me be a part of the song,’” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, thank you for being a part of the song.’ She’s so gracious, such a wonderful professional. And she really truly, whenever she was talking about the song. She’s like, ‘Yeah, this song really speaks to me, where I’ve come from.’ She’s like, ‘I feel like this is my song.’ And I’m like, ‘Cool.’ I guess when you have that authenticity about it, it really resonates. It really resonates with people.”

“The story behind ‘Dear Rodeo’ is more a story about life and less about rodeo,” he previously said in a statement. “I feel like everybody has their own ‘Dear Rodeo’ story and when I found out that Reba was impacted by this song enough to want to do a duet, it was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my career.”