Among the general party atmosphere of their songs is a very specific scene: girl (never woman, often “baby”), car, and booze. “Cruise” represents a new subgenre that’s been named “bro country,” sung by beefy men who, with their carefully distressed looks, bear not even a passing resemblance to either George Jones or George Strait. In the (), the guys ride in the truck together. Anyway, the song’s sexual implications are a bit muddled, becoming perhaps accidentally progressive. By this point, you might imagine the woman looking on a bit skeptically as her date croons at the stars. They drive off to the woods, where the singer turns soulful: “I put it in park and / grabbed my guitar / And strummed a couple chords / And sang from the heart.” Good family fun after all.
So far, so good: woman located and obtained. The song’s unnamed woman arrives on the scene drinking Southern Comfort, wearing a bikini top, showing off “them long tanned legs,” before jumping into the narrator’s truck and proclaiming, like some backwoods Lauren Bacall, “Fire it up, let’s go get this thing stuck.” (She means, of course, to get the truck stuck in the mud, right?) Baby you a song You make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise Down a back road blowin’ stop signs through the middle Every little farm town with you In this brand new Chevy with a lift kit Would look a hell of a lot better with you up in it
