Country music was made for singing together. The genre is full of songs about friends and friendship, songs that seem to be made to be sung together with a close friend. We take a look at four of country music's best songs about best friends and friendship.
Videos by Wide Open Country
1. "My Best Friend"
It's hard to imagine a better song about best friends and friendship than Tim McGraw's "My Best Friend." The song, released in 1999, was written by hit songwriters Aimee Mayo and Bill Luther. In this song, the song is referring to the singer's spouse, who for McGraw is obviously Faith Hill.
"From the first time I heard it, I felt like I had sat down and wrote it," McGraw says (via Country Now). "Not being a songwriter, it's great to have a song that hits you like that ... that you can sing it like you mean every word of it. I've been lucky to have a lot of those songs but none that hits that close to home."
2. "You Can't Make Old Friends"
Kenny Rogers released "You Can't Make Old Friends" in 2013, the title track of one of the last albums he would release before he passed away in 2020. Rogers sings the song with Dolly Parton, one of his closest friends for decades. The song was released 30 years after Rogers' and Parton's iconic "Islands in the Stream" duet.
"We are soul partners," Rogers says in the video. "I believe that ... We cannot see each other for six months, and we walk in a room, and it's like we're just back together again.
3. "Famous Friends"
Chris Young is joined by Kane Brown in this song, released in 2021 as the title track of Young's eighth studio album. Young wrote the song with Cary Barlowe and Corey Crowder, inspired by his own real-life friends.
"We were out on the bus, out on tour, and we'd written a ballad and a tempo song," Young recalls to WTNJ. "And I was like, 'Man, I really want to write something about the people I grew up with, with kind of a hometown vibe.' And this was what spawned from that idea. All the names I reference are actual people, so that's kind of cool. It's like a bunch of little pictures of people and who they are. And it'll be a lot of fun when they hear it."
4. "Find Out Who Your Friends Are"
Tracy Lawrence was joined by McGraw and Kenny Chesney on "Find Out Who Your Friends Are." The song, which became Lawrence's eighth No. 1 hit. The song also won Lawrence an ACM Award, for Vocal Event of the Year.
George Jones and Darryl Worley are among the friends who join Lawrence in the video.
"We shot this down in Alabama, and it was in July, and it was so freaking hot," Lawrence tells Backstage Country. "We had Roy Oswalt there. I mean, we had so many different celebrities and people that came in to shoot the video. It was just a fun day of fellowship and everybody just having a good time and hanging out. It was just blistering hot."
