Between a frenzied undertow of slide guitars and a focus on laidback country life, Jackson Dean’s “Blacktop Blues” depicts a guy in a hurry to slow down.
It’s kind of like a driving vacation: The tug to go somewhere new is strong, but when the escape comes to a close, somewhere near the end of the trip home, an anticipation returns, though this time it’s the excitement that comes from getting settled back into a place that feels right.
For Dean — and for just about every other country artist — it’s a familiar emotional cycle that accompanies touring. The motivation to hit the road, present the music and see the faces of the fans is addictive, but after days of long bus rides and transitory environs, there’s a buzz that comes from getting back to the family.
“I got everything that I dreamed of, you know — a woman, and a cabin, and a dog, and one of the coolest jobs on planet Earth,” Dean says. “It’s a cool bit of life that I’m getting to lead. But I’m still out there four or five days a week, God knows where … so you’re gone all the time, and you’re just like, ‘Man, I need to pet my dog and kiss my lady.’ So, that song, ‘Blacktop,’ is all about getting home and getting back to respite.”
Nashville’s songwriters have their own version of that story. Hawkinsville, Ga., native Jimi Bell (“Last Night Lonely,” “Backup Plan”) exemplifies it, feeling the constant pressure to wax poetic about a lifestyle he no longer encounters every day.
“You take all these people from the corners of the earth, and bring them all together and put them all in a city and [say], ‘All right now, create for me,’” Bell notes. “You take them out of the environment where they are naturally from, and the experiences that they had, and it can be frustrating at times.”
That tug of war between big-city and small-town life emerged when Bell, Tucker Beathard (“Chevy Silverado,” “Rock On”) and Luke Dick (“Choosin’ Texas,” “Burning Man”) met up in May 2025 for a writing session at Little Louder Music. Bell proposed a title, but it morphed into something else.
“His idea was ‘Red Dirt Blues,’” Beathard says. “The next thing you know, we came up with ‘I need a little red dirt for my blacktop blues,’ like try to get [three] colors in there. We had this hook and concept, and we spent a lot of the day mapping out some of it.”
That mapping included the introduction of another shade from the palette, the contrast of a green country field versus a couple of weeds sneaking through urban concrete. They had some music for it, too, but as it came together, it seemed like it would be a good fit for Dean, and they decided to table it until he could get involved and tailor it to his voice.
They didn’t have to wait long. Beathard and Bell accompanied Dean on a tour run just a week or two later, intent on writing a few songs. During a June 6 stop at the Carolina Country Music Festival in Myrtle Beach, S.C., the two pitched the verbal hook of “Blacktop Blues” to Dean. He passed, and they moved on. In retrospect, their lyrics-only presentation may have missed the mark.
“Jackson’s very musically led,” Bell reasons. Matching it to music “probably would have been a much more interesting thing than just, ‘Hey, here’s some clever wordplay.’”
As it happened, Beathard and Dick had an appointment with Dean the following week, and Dick — who hadn’t been on that bus run — brought it back up. This time, he introduced a choppy slide guitar hook and a slapping backbeat to go with it. Dean was immediately sold.
“I was like, ‘Oh, we can rip that live so good,’” Dean remembers. “It’s just three chords all the time, you know. It’s a groover.”
The energy in that musical vibe likely made all the difference. “Songs are songs,” Dick notes. “The beauty of Nashville is that it’s a song town, and music and production are such a big part of what a song is to me. Can you imagine ‘Thriller’ without production? You know, the song and the production are kind of intertwined.”
Beathard drove the melody in the verses and chorus, threading a stream of steady rhythms that keep the piece rolling forward. But they also demand that the singer inhale deeply every time there’s an opportunity.
“Finding where to breathe is so important,” Dean says. “It’s like it’s designated: here’s your time to breathe. There’s only like five or six points.”
The lyrics keep pushing the guy toward that moment when he can slow down, but the song’s pre-chorus allows the singer to feel that slowdown just a hair. It breaks the cadence with drawn-out syllables — ideal for five-part harmony in Dean’s live shows — as it hails “sweeeet Virginia,” a nod to the commonwealth next door to his home state of Maryland. “We used to run [Interstate] 81 all the time driving back and forth between home and Nashville,” he recalls. “Those miles will run you ragged.”
The change of pace at the pre-chorus was purposely temporary. “[After] that staccato phrasing in the verse,” Beathard says, “we let it breathe for a second, give it a release [with the] melody, before we hit them again with another repetitive, ball-busting chorus.”
The demo was fairly spare, though it provided an obvious roadmap. When they recorded “Blacktop” at Blackbird Studio A, they used the loose percussion and slide sound of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You,” and the light stomp of Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time,” as a stylistic template.
“’Blacktop Blues’ has this accented, almost-reckless acoustic playing along with this heavy syncopation,” Dick assesses. “To me, it’s something powerful and simple, almost back-porchy, too, at the same time.”
Session player Rob McNelley and Dick played competing slide guitar parts, and Dick changed the tone on portions of those performances — and on sections of Juan Solorzano’s steel — to create a series of different-sounding instruments that slip in and out of the foundation underneath the vocal.
“Blacktop” became the opening track on Dean’s album Magnolia Sage, and it emerged as one of the most memorable, too. His team, including Blue Highway, settled on it as a follow-up to the album’s first single, “Make a Liar.” The label released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Sept. 14, capturing Dean’s current state of mind: Hit the concert trail hard and protect the slowdown time at home.
“’Blacktop’ really encapsulates a good bit of where I’m at,” he says. “It’s the wanting to get home, wanting to be there, and wanting to go out and put my boots on and go to work, so I can feel good about coming home.”
