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Nobody is saying there is a direct connection, but it sure seems like whenever Brad Paisley performs the national anthem before a World Series game things tend to go long. The “When I Get Where I’m Going” singer sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Dodger Stadium on Monday (Oct. 27) in game three of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays, there was no way to know that the contest would stretch into a record-tying 18 innings over more than six-and-a-half hours, with the Dodgers ending up with a 6-5 victory.
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Well, unless you’ve been paying attention and clocked that it was the fourth time Paisley had done the honors, with each one of those games going into extra innings: 11 innings for game 2 in 2017, 18 innings for game 3 in 2018 and 10 innings in game one in 2024.
Speaking to the Associated Press on Tuesday (Oct. 28), Paisley revealed whether, given his track record, he suspected Monday’s game would go long. “No, I fully, I fully expected this to actually be over in nine for maybe the first time in a while, you know,” he said, adding, “I am cursed. No, I don’t think so. … It’s wild. It’s fun. I think it’s a really fun thing.”
Paisley said that actually, instead of being a curse, he considers his extra inning run as one of those “weird fun facts that baseball excels in… It’s what Brad Pitt says in Moneyball. It’s like, ‘How can you not be romantic about baseball?’”
In fact, Paisley is so into his unique status as baseball’s extra inning man that he’s given himself a new nickname: “Mr. More Baseball.”
“It’s kind of cool to know that I sang the anthem at a couple, at the two of the four total Dodger walk-off games that ever happened. The other two were before my time anyway. … And especially the one that was 18 innings,” Paisley said, noting that around the 16th inning on Monday he thought, “‘There’s no way this is happening again.’” The day after, the singer said he saw a couple of statisticians note that he’s never performed at a World Series game that didn’t go into extra innings. “I’m available for football games, too,” he joked. “If anybody wants, you know, another quarter or two out of their team.”
Though Paisley is a West Virginia native, he said marrying wife actress Kimberly-Williams Paisley in 2003 and having a home in the Los Angeles area has made him a de facto Dodgers die-hard. “I would take the kids to these games. I got to know so many people there. … It was just an easy transition into that. I grew up going to Pirates games. My dad liked the Indians,” he said of his other go-to teams.
He noted that he’s also become friendly with a few Dodgers players, including pitcher Clayton Kershaw and infielder Justin Turner, as well as team manager Dave Roberts. “We’ve had adventures together,” Paisley said. “It’s a slow progress to where you’re addicted to something. And I got there pretty quick a while back.”
Trending on Billboard New chart moves at country show its range in full swing –– from Dan + Shay’s Taylor Swift revival to Ella Langley’s Texas grit and Morgan Wallen’s British rock spin –– proving the genre’s biggest moments can come from anywhere. Dan + Shay debut at No. 4 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song […]
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Need an early indication that a World Series game at Dodger Stadium is going to extend late into the evening? Seeing Brad Paisley step up to perform the national anthem just might be a clue.
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The country artist performed the U.S. national anthem at Dodger Stadium preceding a matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night (Oct. 27), and the game ended in extra innings — marking the fourth time a World Series game with Paisley playing the national anthem went into extra innings, according to Major League Baseball. This time, during the 18th inning, the Dodgers pulled ahead for a 6-5 victory.
Paisley now has been the anthem singer prior to both of the World Series’ longest games, which each ending in 18 innings.
Each of the four times Paisley has played the national anthem prior to a World Series Game, the game has gone into extra innings. Paisley sang the anthem last year for Game 1 of the World Series, a matchup between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees that lasted 10 innings. In 2018, he performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Game 3 of the World Series, prior to a game between the Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox; that game lasted 18 innings. In 2017, he sang the national anthem for the first time at the World Series, in Game 2 before a match between the Dodgers and the Houston Astros, which went for 11 innings.
Though Paisley has yet to comment on his seeming penchant of playing before extended games, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, his wife and actress, chimed in on social media, commenting on a video of the country singer playing the anthem before the game, which also happened to take place the day before his 53rd birthday on Oct. 28.
“Is it your fault it went 18 innings again? Nice of the @dodgers to win for your birthday!” Williams-Paisley wrote.
Some of Williams-Paisley’s fellow Hallmark Channel actors also chimed in, including Kris Polaha, who commented with fire emojis, and Tyler Hynes, who wrote, “Knew he was a Jays fan.”
Paisley has just added a slate of European dates to his tour for 2026, including stops in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. He is also set to release the holiday album, Snow Globe Town, on Nov. 7.
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On this week’s episode of The Hot 100 Show, Billboard‘s chart experts break down the surge of “Mutt” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” into the top 10, as well as Justin Bieber’s “Daisies” and Morgan Wallen making their way back in after a Taylor Swift-filled chart. They also share their thoughts on why they think the popularity of “Golden” and “The Fate of Ophelia” continue to hold steady.
Tetris Kelly: We have a couple of new top 10s as we find out if “Golden” can defeat Taylor Swift. Welcome back to another week of our little countdown show, where we’re figuring out if Taylor Swift, “Golden” or who’s gonna be at No. 1. But guess what? We do got some new entries this week you’re gonna want to check out, and we might have predicted them in our contenders, so let’s run it down. This is The Billboard Hot 100 top 10 for the week dated Nov. 1. Leon Thomas hits the top 10 with “Mutt.”
Leon Thomas: I think “Mutt” definitely resonated with the culture so much because it has a lot of essence of P Funk, Bootsy Collins. I feel like post pandemic, everybody got into their little toxic energy. So it’s like perfectly toxic.
Tetris Kelly: Morgan is back with “I Got Better.” Olivia Dean arrives with “Man I Need.” I feel like this is a really interesting top 10 because some of our contenders have finally made their way in. Let’s start with Leon Thomas and “Mutt.” How you guys feeling about his top 10 debut?
Delisa Shannon: Oh, wow. I’m so excited as a Nickelodeon kid — this is a really big moment for me to be able to see Leon Thomas and to see the way that he’s been, I mean, building his craft ever since he picked up that guitar on Naked Brothers Band back in the day. To see how he’s been able to craft a sound, to see it be celebrated in this way. I’m super, super proud and so excited that we’re getting to see it crack the top 10.
Xander Zellner: Also, it’s like exciting, because he has been around for years, not just like on Victorious and on Nickelodeon, but like he was producing and writing songs for Drake and Ariana Grande and SZA’s “Snooze,” like he’s been writing songs for a while, but it’s exciting to see him actually have a song of his own in the top 10 for the first time. So big moment for him.
Trevor Anderson: And the song has been around for a long time, too. I mean, that song came out in August 2024.
Keep watching for more!
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After touring for 30 years, LeAnn Rimes has learned a thing or two about maintaining her sanity on the road.
“Don’t ever fly day of show. You can’t do that anymore,” she cautions. “Even if you’re flying from Los Angeles to Oakland [Calif.], make sure you pack your outfit in your carry-on because your bag still may get f–king lost. And never do more than three shows in a row.”
Rimes has been famous ever since an impossibly big voice came out of a wee girl when she appeared on Star Search in 1991, becoming a one-week champion at the age of 8. Five years later, she sounded preternaturally mature when Curb Records released her first single, “Blue,” which garnered comparisons to Patsy Cline.
More than three decades into her career, the multiple Grammy winner, now 43, finds touring a richer experience than ever before, which has earned her the Unstoppable Award, to be presented at the Billboard Live Music Summit in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. “I love performing now more than I probably ever have because I feel like it’s on my terms,” she says. “I create this show that I want to perform, and I invite people into this space.”
LeAnn Rimes will be honored with the Unstoppable Award at Billboard‘s Live Music Summit, held Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, click here.
That’s a far cry from the early days when she moved at a much swifter pace, playing more than 500 shows over three-and-a-half years from ages 13 to 16. “No one really knew how long this was going to last,” she recalls. “And it was that frame of mind of, ‘Get it while you can.’ Then when we were done, people were like, ‘This may actually last and we just killed her!’ ”
For decades she continued touring at a less punishing rate but never took off more than six months out of the year. “It wasn’t until COVID till I ever sat my ass in one place for that long,” Rimes says, adding that the pandemic renewed her appreciation for performing. “These last several years, I’ve really thought long and hard about what I want to be putting out in the world, and it’s important to me to hopefully bring [the audience] some joy when people come to the shows.”
For Rimes, who now aims to play around 60 shows a year, touring remains “a huge part of my income. God knows the music business sucks. This is how we make money as artists.” Along the way, the live veteran has adapted to modern touring — namely, the advent of social media. “It’s just wild to see how much it’s changed,” says Rimes, who now looks out at a sea of cellphones rather than people’s faces every night. “It could easily control you. I don’t think about it too much anymore. I try to just allow it to be what it is because it’s its own beast.”
But as she experienced this summer, she can’t control everything onstage. During a show in Bow, Wash., in June, her front dental bridge fell out as she was singing “One Way Ticket.” She ran offstage, adjusted it and rejoined her band. The moment was, of course, captured on video and went viral. Months later, she calls the incident “pretty f–king funny,” laughing as she relives it. “I realized at that moment I could either quit — I’m four songs in — which I thought I was going to have to unless I was able to hold [the bridge] in. But luckily, I was able to. I’ve pretty much had everything happen to me onstage that could possibly happen, and that was probably one of the most precarious situations I’ve ever been in. I was very proud of myself that I handled it like a pro.”
After that incident and countless others, including tripping over sound monitors and even falling into the pit years ago, she has grown unflappable — and her shows remain potent. “LeAnn’s remarkable voice, her deep artistry and her connection with an audience have all continued to strengthen and grow throughout her 30-year career,” says Seth Malasky, her primary agent and senior vp at Wasserman, which books her in North America. “Her shows feel timeless yet brand-new. She’s earned her reputation as an authentic and captivating performer.”
Still, Rimes has diversified her creative output. Over the past two years, other projects have limited her to about 30 performances annually; in 2024, she was a coach on The Voice Australia and The Voice UK, and this year, she’s shooting ABC’s 9-1-1: Nashville, in which she plays the villainous, jaded backup singer Dixie.
“It’s been insane,” she says of trying to schedule live dates around her often shifting filming schedule. She was initially wary of signing on to the Ryan Murphy-created fire department procedural after watching her husband, actor Eddie Cibrian, deal with the vagaries of shooting an episodic TV series: “I have seen him go through not getting scripts until 24 hours before they’re shooting. I won’t say it’s been easy — I think at one time we were juggling seven episodes [between us] — but I think we’re getting to a point now where we’re starting to kind of get a little bit more in a groove.”
Looking ahead, next year marks the 30th anniversary of Rimes’ album Blue, which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart in 1996 — and celebratory plans include a potential tour. “It is in the works,” Rimes says. “I know everybody’s so into nostalgia right now, which I’m loving. It’s really funny to revisit that record because I was so little. There’s about seven songs on it that I still really love that I would play.” Among all her hits, including “How Do I Live” and “Can’t Fight the Moonlight,” she says she never tires of singing the album’s title track. “There are just songs that melodically, lyrically, they’re never going to go out of style,” she says. “ ‘Blue’ is probably the one that will forever just be a classic.”
As she plots that potential Blue tour and other future outings, she’s confident — and can find humor in the unexpected. “Pretty much nothing embarrasses me onstage,” she says. “I don’t even know if my pants falling down would embarrass me. I’d be like, ‘Whatevs… you guys got more than you paid for today.’ ”
This story appears in the Oct. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Trending on Billboard Sometimes singers on The Voice move the celebrity judges with the power or emotion in their voice. But on Monday night (Oct. 27), Team Reba’s Aubrey Nicole got right to the heart of the matter for her crew’s leader by singing a tune whose lyrics hit home in the most personal way. […]
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How much is enough?
Most people who accrue a fair amount of money and/or power ask that question at some juncture. Those who don’t ask it – well, they probably missed the point.
Count Thomas Rhett among those trying to figure it out. It’s the whole premise behind his new single, “Ain’t a Bad Life,” featuring Jordan Davis. He created it during a weekend on tour in the Dakotas in 2022 with four fellow songwriters who were pondering the subject.
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“We’d just been in this long conversation about contentment and how hard it is for a man, or a woman, to find contentment in life,” he recalls.
Funny thing about that. Rhett and his wife, Lauren, struggled mightily, even after he started having hits. He was actually losing money as an opening act during the early part of his career. He booked overlapping club shows in the middle of those dates to at least break even, but the added work tested his stamina and his patience.
“Those days when my wife and I had zero – like, those were arguably more fun,” he says. “I mean, when you’re scrapping for something, when you’re really in the trenches, and you’re ride or die, those are the times that really kind of built our marriage and [the] values that we still stand on today.”
All of that fed the scenario in the Dakotas. Several writers flew to a midwestern airport on Sept. 28, 2022, and met Rhett’s bus in transit for a show the next night in Grand Forks, N.D. They chatted a bit, stopped for dinner, then chatted some more. Finally, after midnight, they started the first of 12 or 13 songs they penned that weekend. Rhett introduced a chord progression with a James Taylor “Fire And Rain” vibe, and he sang a line that he’d had for a bit: “Didn’t win the Lotto, but the Dawgs won.”
Someone else – likely Ashley Gorley (“I Had Some Help,” “Dirt On My Boots”) or John Byron (“Love Somebody,” “What I Want”) – chimed in “Didn’t bag a big ‘un, but I saw one.” And another line came up: “Ain’t a bad life for a good old boy.” That seemed like a hook, and they dug in trying to fit it all together, with Mark Trussell (“your place,” “Good Time”) taking over the guitar parts and feeding all their ideas into a track on his laptop as they built the song.
Rhett and Gorley had all sorts of melodies flying, and they picked out the ones that seemed to fit best together, even if they didn’t know exactly where they would use them.
“It’s usually a fast-paced thing, especially with him and TR,” notes Blake Pendergrass (“I Got Better,” “Heart Of Stone”). “That whole trip, I remember after it was over thinking about how cool it is to see them work together, where they’re just bouncing melodies and feels off of each other. It’s like this frantic 10- to 15-minute period at the beginning of any song.”
The first verse captured an average Joe with a long to-do list and a significantly used truck who seems mostly contented. Then they slipped into a series of choppy phrases – “No I ain’t… got it all… but I sure… got it made” – that changed the texture. “Ashley or somebody was flowing that melody, and after a little while, we’re all kind of wondering, ‘What is this section?’” Trussell recalls. “Somebody said,’ I think it’s the chorus.’ It happened pretty fast after that.”
Those phrases were unconventional for a chorus – they sneak up to the downbeat, instead of anthemically beginning at the start of a measure – and after a few lines, they changed things once more mid-chorus, mixing elongated “oo-oo-oo-oo” earworms with self-affirming lyrics on the way to the “Ain’t a Bad Life” payoff. “You got to get some ear candy in there,” Rhett says. “Especially on a song that means this much. That and the opening guitar lick arguably are the hookiest parts of the song.”
They stopped at some point – likely after the first verse and chorus – and moved on to other songs, but they came back and finished “Ain’t a Bad Life” after the weekend’s final show, Oct. 1 in Sioux Falls, S.D. After focusing on money and possessions in the opening verse, the second one explored the balance of personal enjoyment and spirituality, and the final verse – placed where a bridge would typically reside – celebrated family.
“When you’re doing a life song, where it’s not just about one thing, you’re aiming to try and make it more substantial as time goes on lyrically,” Pendergrass says. “Whether we even discussed that or not, I’m not sure, but generally speaking, I think that’s a gut kind of a situation where everybody’s on the same page.”
Trussell filled out a demo after the trip, but about three weeks later, they all decided the original intro sounded too much like “Fire and Rain.” So Trussell refashioned it around a 12-string guitar, and though it doesn’t mimic any particular song, it feels just a hair like “Gasoline Alley” / “Maggie May”-era Rod Stewart.
Rhett thought it would work as a duet, but he didn’t have anyone in mind for it, so instead of cutting it for his About a Woman album, he tabled it. But as they contemplated a deluxe version of the album, “Ain’t a Bad Life” resurfaced. Rhett had bonded with Davis on a hunting trip, and he seemed like the right guy for it. Rhett also decided that instead of recutting it, he should have Trussell produce the master, mostly copying what he’d done on the demo.
Trussell played many of the parts, though he worked with drummer Aaron Sterling to redo the rhythm tracks; hired Rich Brinsfield, of Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, to handle bass; and enlisted Dave Cohen for keyboards. Rhett cut his vocal at home, and Trussell handled all the background vocals behind Rhett and Davis.
“The higher melody was pretty laid out for you – you follow the melody, it worked really well,” Trussell says. “The lower harmony part was a little more involved, because the chords aren’t your run-of-the-mill diatonic chords. The BGVs were actually really fun, to do some notes that [created some] dissonance, but also maybe keep it in sort of a major-feeling thing.”
Contented with the results, Valory released “Ain’t a Bad Life” to country radio via PlayMPE on Sept. 8, and it currently resides at No. 28 on Billboard’s Country Airplay list dated Oct. 25, its fifth charted week. It provides a centrist country topic as a follow-up to “After All the Bars Are Closed,” even as Rhett works on a future project.
“I just kind of felt like ‘Ain’t a Bad Life’ with Jordan was just a nice palate cleanser,” he says, “going into whatever comes next.”
Trending on Billboard Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” Leon Thomas’ “Mutt,” Justin Bieber’s “Daises” and more make their way back into the top 10 of the Hot 100. But can HUNTR/X’s “Golden” take No. 1, or will Taylor Swift still reign supreme? Tetris Kelly: We have a couple of new top 10s as we find […]
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With 17 of the top 20 songs on Billboard‘s current Country Airplay chart written, or co-written, by the artist who performed it, the country music industry has found an interesting time to recognize the interpreters.
Emmylou Harris, who relied on other songwriters for most of the material she has recorded during her career, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame on Oct. 6. Trisha Yearwood, who waited until her latest album to dig seriously into songwriting, was recognized for that project, The Mirror, in an Oct. 8 conversation with songwriter Liz Rose at Nashville’s Anzie Blue. And The Music of My Life: An All-Star Tribute to Anne Murray finds at least a dozen acts celebrating a Canadian songstress who has never written a song in her life on Oct. 27 at the Grand Ole Opry House.
“The average listener doesn’t know” if you wrote the song, Murray reasons, “and if you do a good interpretation and you pick good songs, I see no reason why you can’t have success. And I did.”
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Indeed, in previous eras, artist-writers were less common than those who built their careers on songs fashioned by full-time composers. And it’s tough to fault the accomplishments of interpreters Martina McBride, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Glen Campbell, Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Bing Crosby or Linda Ronstadt.
“I just always wanted to be her,” Yearwood said of Ronstadt during her Oct. 8 event. “I still just want to be her.”
Not everybody does. A premium is placed on singer-songwriters in the current marketplace, in part by the artists and their representatives, since writer royalties provide singers with an additional revenue stream. But the age of the internet likely creates extra pressure for artists to write their own material. Fans interact with performers through social media, and with that personal connection, they seek personal insights from artists in their songs, too.
“It’s great, whatever they choose to do to become successful and happy,” Murray allows. “Things do change.”
Murray, in fact, witnessed the first wave of that change. The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys‘ Brian Wilson elevated the concept of the artist as writer in pop music in the 1960s.
It created a certain level of snobbery from some fans — and from some artists — around the subject. Murray is certain she has been criticized for not writing her own songs — “but,” she says, “not to my face.”
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Yearwood similarly maintains a sense of humor about it. When questioned about not writing her hits, she often insisted that “no one ever thought ‘I Fall to Pieces’ was less of a song just because Patsy Cline didn’t write it.”
In fact, some of the albums that have been most important in country music history — Willie Nelson‘s Stardust, Ray Charles‘Moderns Sounds in Country & Western Music and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band‘s Will the Circle Be Unbroken — were intentionally built around songs not written by the artist. The genre wouldn’t be what it is without them.
Similarly, most of Harris’ albums were shaped by other people’s material, even though she proved on The Ballad of Sally Rose, Red Dirt Girl and Stumble Into Grace that she is quite adept at composing when it suits her.
“The song, for me, is everything,” she said during her Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame acceptance speech. “I’m an interpreter — proud to be — and I really am grateful that there are people like Rodney [Crowell]who write these wonderful songs so that I don’t have to go into the writing room and pull them out.”
With thousands of songs available, Harris — much like Charles, Ronstadt or Nelson — selected her songs to fit specific themes or sonic motifs. She was able to renew her art repeatedly through her choices.
“She has really challenged herself as an artist through the years and she’s just kept growing,” fellow Songwriters Hall inductee Jim Lauderdale notes. “I would have been content as a fan and listener if she would have just done the first five albums — you know, repeating those in some way — but she went way beyond that.”
Harris evolved from album to album much the same way that Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp or Charlize Theron drew from different parts of their creative wells to play parts in movies they did not write. That often required them to convey the personality of roles that had no relationship to their real lives.
Similarly, no one required McBride to have actually burned down a house to deliver the story in “Independence Day.” Garth Brooks didn’t have to crash his ex’s wedding to sell the drunken scenario of “Friends in Low Places.” Reba McEntire wasn’t forced to kill anyone to sing “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” or become a hooker to capture the emotions in “Fancy.” And Yearwood didn’t need to have a teenage fling with a criminal to pull listeners into “Walkaway Joe.” She also was able to maintain some privacy.
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“I become a character in the movie for three-and-a-half minutes when I sing a song,” Yearwood said. “You’re able to [connect] through your emotions, but that’s really personal. You’re not necessarily sharing [your inner life] with everybody. I feel like I kind of kept that wall up for a long, long time.”
Still, when the majority of artists are mining their inner world to write their material, a gut-level connection with songs does matter, even for the interpreters. But artists weren’t always allowed to select the material that resonated most with them; many — particularly females — were at the mercy of their producers.
“A lot of the girl singers — Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee and Patti Page and people like that — they didn’t even have a choice,” Murray says. “Somebody chose the songs for them. I’ve had conversations with Rosemary Clooney about that. She hated some of the stuff she did because they didn’t give her meaty stuff. You know, something like ‘You Needed Me’ where you could sink your teeth into it.”
Ultimately, the emotional impact on the listener remains the most important aspect of a performance, whether the conduit is a singer-songwriter or an interpreter.
“The world needs songs,” Harris said. “We need someone to express what is inside our hearts, what is inside our souls, and nothing touches us more than a song that speaks to our humanity.”
