Luke Bryan has been a country superstar for nearly 15 years, achieving countless milestones. But none compares to the career-defining hit he says he’ll never stop performing live
In an interview with Backstage Country host Elaina Smith, the American Idol judge opened up about one song that changed his career. Fourteen years after its release, he says it continues to inspire him to keep performing until he’s “80.”
“Country Girl (Shake It for Me)” became a career turning point for the country superstar. However, despite its popularity, it never reached a No. 1 chart position.
Bryan explained, “I think it didn’t go all the way to No. 1 just because I think a portion of people just didn’t really know how to embrace ‘Country Girl (Shake It for Me).’ And when I wrote it, I was kind of scared of it a little bit, because it was stepping out there. When it didn’t get to number one, I don’t think I was disappointed or anything.”
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“When I look forward, what a life-altering song for me that I’ll get to play until I’m an 80-year-old man getting to make some country girls have fun and dance,” he concluded.
Bryan also discussed how the wildly popular song wasn’t as profitable as it should have been, due to the popularity of illegal music downloads in the early 2010s. He told Smith that people didn’t understand “how much that song was getting illegally downloaded at that time.”
He explained, “Early in my career, I was caught up in the illegal part of songs.A lot of my songs, and Jason Aldean, every artist of that time frame.” Over three years, Bryan claimed his record label estimated that listeners were illegally downloading “Country Girl” a staggering 20 million times a week.
Luke Bryan is currently on his “Country Song Came On Tour,” which includes dates throughout October 2025. The tour picks up again in January 2026.
