Blake Shelton’s “Ol’ Red” Lyrics Meaning

As with many a good country song, “Ol’ Red” has a distinct narrative that actually reads like a shorty story. The narrator/singer is in jail basically for life due to ‘catching his wife with another man’, insinuating that he committed some sort of violent crime as a result.  While there he befriends the warden. The warden has a dog named Ol’ Red whom he is very proud of, since due to its uncanny tracking abilities no inmate has ever been able to successfully escape the facility. And he entrusts the care of this animal to the narrator. 

The narrator then comes up with a plan where he and his cousin plant a female dog in the nearby swampland for Ol’ Red to mate with. And after exposing him to her on a daily basis, the singer decides to deny the dog the privilege “for three or four days” in order to, succinctly put, make him really aroused. The reason he does this is so that the next time he takes the dog out, he would be so preoccupied with satisfying his sensual hunger that he wouldn’t notice the narrator making his escape. 

And apparently the scheme works. And why are we so sure the scheme worked out well? Simply because the singer basically mocks the situation at the end of the song by stating that “love got me in here, and love got me out”.

Facts about “Ol’ Red”

“Ol’ Red” was originally recorded by George Jones in 1990 and then country music legend Kenny Rogers in 1993.

Blake Shelton released his own version on 18 March 2002.  It served as the third single from his debut album, which was named after the artist himself.

And the label that put it out is Warner Bros. Nashville.

Blake Shelton’s version has been certified Platinum in the United States. In that country, it reached number 1 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.

Blake Shelton had an affinity for this song “for many, many years” before he was actually allowed to record it, and his rendition has become a fan favorite and indeed is considered to be his signature song.

The music video to “Ol’ Red”, with director Peter Zavadil at the helm, included cameos from professional race car driver Elliot Sadler and the track’s producer, Bobby Braddock.

Who wrote “Ol’ Red”?

“Ol’ Red” was written by the following songwriters:

• Don Goodman
• Mark Sherrill