Released September 5, 2011 Recorded 2010 Length 3:23 | Format Digital download Genre Country rock Label Broken Bow | |
"Tattoos on This Town" is a song written by Michael Dulaney, Wendell Mobley, and Neil Thrasher and recorded by American country music artist Jason Aldean. It was released on September 5, 2011 as the fourth single from his 2010 album My Kinda Party.
Contents
Content
"Tattoos on This Town" is a moderate up-tempo country rock song, in which a man reflects on the effect growing up in his home town had on him and those he grew up with (friends or significant other is never directly acknowledged) by revisiting events of their lives and expressing them in a metaphoric tattoo on the town and eventually on themselves and who they are.
Critical reception
"Tattoos on This Town" has received generally positive reviews from critics. Billy Dukes of Taste of Country gave "Tattoos on This Town" 4.5 out of 5 stars, praising Aldean's performance and comparing the song to many of his previous hits, saying how this song "runs parallel to our own tales of mischief, lost innocence and heartache". Ben Foster of Country Universe gave the song a B rating, praising the song's lyrical construction, as well as how it "succeeds due to the fact that it rises about the superficial idealization and cliché formulas that have bogged down a great deal of Aldean’s material".
Music video
The music video for "Tattoos on This Town" debuted for download on iTunes on September 20, 2011. It then premiered on YouTube on September 22, 2011, and on CMT and GAC on September 26, 2011.
The video, directed by Wes Edwards, portrays a young couple's love story, starting from their teenage years, fast-forwarding through marriage and settling down, all the way to the young man's leaving for war. Some time later, his wife is paid a visit by two Marines who inform her about the death of her husband. It then fast-forwards through the young widow's life, in which she attends her husband's funeral and also gives birth to a son. As the video ends, the son, now a young boy (wearing his late father's old cap), throws a stone into the lake near the tree where his parents had carved "I Love You" many years before. Throughout the video, Aldean and his band perform inside an aircraft hangar, filmed in Smyrna, Tennessee.
Chart performance
"Tattoos on This Town" debuted at number 18 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart in 2010 as an album cut based on downloads. Upon its release as a single, the song debuted at number 59 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart the week of August 27, 2011 and peaked at number 2 for six weeks, having been blocked from number one by Zac Brown Band's "Keep Me in Mind", making it his thirteenth top ten hit on this chart. It also debuted at number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week of October 8, 2011 and has peaked at number 38, his fourth consecutive top 40 hit on this chart and seventh overall. Most recently, it debuted at number 96 on the Canadian Hot 100 and peaked at number 59. The song has sold 754,000 digital downloads as of May 2, 2012.