Country music’s witty songwriter and just as incredible guitarist Brad Paisley has already been taking the nation captive with his current American Saturday Night Tour, and now the accompanying album to the tour has just been released, sparking an air of change rumbling throughout Paisley’s repertoire. Usually known for his light-hearted hits and sly humor, Paisley has struck a new chord with American Saturday Night, the much more serious album released last week via Arista. Led by the thunderous single “Welcome to the Future” and backed by several other hits outlining social and political life in the U.S., American Saturday Night is a much more grown-up version of a Brad Paisley classic, and the album has garnered nothing but praise so far in its short reign.

Using the lead single “Welcome to the Future” to define the modification in his latest album, Paisley has spoken about the structure for the very serious song, saying that the inspiration behind “Welcome to the Future” was Barack Obama’s rise to presidency this past year. With the powerful lyrics, “I had a friend in school,/ Running back on the football team,/ They burned a cross in his front yard/ For asking out the homecoming queen./ I thought about him today,/ Everybody who’s seen what he’s seen,/ From a woman on a bus/ To a man with a dream,”

Brad Paisley has outlined the phenomenal change he’s seen in Americans over the last several years, saying that when President Obama was elected, “There was an amazing shift in public emotion that night. It was breathtaking. I felt like in country music, we’re the first ones to write about some kind of conflict, or war, and yet we shy away from these other topics like equal rights. I had that idea, and Chris DuBois, the song’s co-writer, and I started mulling this around. I said, ‘I don’t want it to be a dark song in any way; I want it to be as hopeful as it can be. We need to make this point and make it well.’”

As for the title of the song, it also comes with a nod to President Obama, as the 2009 presidential election left doubts in the minds of Americans spanning the country: “I remember having discussions on my bus, in my household: Could he really win this? A lot of people were saying, ‘I don’t know if it’s time, if the country’s ready.’ And then all of a sudden, I guess we’re ready. Welcome to the future.”

And so Brad Paisley comes crashing onto the music scene more strongly than ever. Country music listeners are taking Brad Paisley’s message seriously through “Welcome to the Future,” and fans with Brad Paisley tickets will most certainly warm up to the song as it is sure to be a staple on the artist’s set list during his current stint with the American Saturday Night Tour. Tickets to see Paisley perform his repertoire of hits in concert are still available online, so come wave that American flag and see what American Saturday Night is all about!

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[tags]Brad Paisley, music, concert, tickets, country[/tags]