Country Music

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TWENTY-EIGHT SONGS IN AUSTIN, AND HE STOPPED THE NIGHT FOR THIS ONE. In April, at the Moody Center, George Strait played his first show of the year in the arena he opened with Willie Nelson in 2022. More than 15,000 people. Somewhere in the middle of a two-hour set he told them he loved seeing the cowboys out there, because they bring the cowgirls with them. Then he sang for the cowgirls. The woman in that song breaks colts in Colorado and bales hay outside Abilene. She tries to fit into a city and can’t. She isn’t waiting for anyone to come save her, and the song never pretends otherwise. One reviewer read it as social commentary on female independence tucked inside a barroom singalong. Strait has 60 number one hits, and this isn’t one of them. It stopped at number three in 2007 and stayed there. Casey Beathard wrote it with Ed Hill, and the title is a flip of the chant American stadiums have been shouting about the Dallas Cowboys for fifty years. Beathard came up inside that world. His father was an NFL general manager. He raised a son who became an NFL quarterback. Out of all that football, he took the line men yell at players and pointed it at women instead. Almost twenty years on, it’s the one 15,000 people in Austin sang back to him.

Twenty-Eight Songs in Austin, and George Strait Stopped the Night for One More

In April, at the Moody Center in Austin, George Strait opened the night with the kind of calm confidence that has defined so much of his career. It was his first show of the year in the arena he helped launch with Willie Nelson in 2022, and the crowd came ready. More than 15,000 people filled the room, turning a concert into a shared memory before the second song had even finished.

Straight moved through a two-hour set with the ease of someone who has spent decades learning exactly when to push and when to pause. Then, at one point, he looked out over the audience and smiled at the sight of the cowboys in the building. He said he loved seeing the cowboys out there, because they bring the cowgirls with them. It was a simple line, the kind that lands only when the room already trusts the person saying it.

The song that made the room lean in

When George Strait reached “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls”, the night changed shape. The song has never been one of his number-one hits, but that has never really been the point. It climbed to No. 3 in 2007 and stayed close enough to the center of country music to matter, especially to fans who heard something sharper inside its smooth barroom rhythm.

The woman in the song is not waiting around for rescue. She breaks colts in Colorado and bales hay outside Abilene. She tries city life and does not fit into it. The song never asks her to become easier to understand, and that may be part of why it still feels alive nearly twenty years later. What sounds, on the surface, like a catchy nod to Texas pride also carries a quieter message about independence and self-possession.

Some songs entertain first and reveal themselves later. “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls” does both at once.

A clever title with football roots

The title itself is a twist on the chant stadiums have shouted for generations about the Dallas Cowboys. That small reversal gives the song its spark. Songwriter Casey Beathard, who co-wrote it with Ed Hill, came out of a football family, and that background gave him a sharp sense for crowd language, momentum, and timing. He turned a familiar cheer inside out and aimed it at women instead.

That is part of what made the song resonate in Austin. The audience was not just hearing an old hit; they were hearing a crowd favorite that still knows how to surprise. George Strait has sixty No. 1 hits, but this one is proof that chart position does not always measure emotional staying power.

Why it still mattered that night

By the end of the set, the song had become more than a throwback. It was a reminder that great country songs can carry humor, admiration, and a little attitude all at once. In a city that knows how to celebrate tradition without freezing it in place, the performance felt especially fitting.

George Strait did not need to oversell it. He let the crowd do the rest. And in Austin, that was enough: 15,000 voices answering back, one song at a time, as if the room had been waiting all year to sing that line again.

 

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