Music

A sped-up version of Chuck Berry’s 1971 song of the same name, “Oh Lousina” further honors Berry’s legacy while also paying tribute to the roots of Beyoncé’s mother’s family.

Everything’s bigger in Texas — including their legends! Twenty years after she sported a Willie Nelson t-shirt on the cover of Texas Monthly, Queen Bey invites the country icon to introduce “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

Before Willie gets on the mic: the song flips through different radio channels featuring snippets of Son House’s “Grinnin’ In Your Face,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Down by the River Side,” Chuck Berry‘s “Maybellene” and Roy Hamilton‘s “Don’t Let Go” — all references to the blues and rock influences that will flesh out Cowboy Carter as an exploration of Black Southern American music beyond country.

Once Willie appears — and after he shouts out the radio station that grounds the album’s concept, KNTRY Radio, a play on KNTY News from the Renaissance era — he invites us to roll one and buckle up for one hell of a ride. “And if you don’t wanna go,” he says, “go find yourself a jukebox!”

In typical Beyoncé fashion, the placement of this interlude is especially intentional. What’s a bigger flex than introducing your history-making country song (“Texas Hold ‘Em”) with a co-sign from the arguably the most iconic country musician of all time?

Another interlude, another union of two music legends. “Dolly P” finds Ms. Dolly Parton herself introducing the next track on Cowboy Carter, which just so happens to be a thrilling redo of her seminal “Jolene.”

“Hey miss Honey B, it’s Dolly P,” Parton begins. “You know that hussy with the good hair you sing about Reminded me of someone I knew back when, except she has flamin’ locks of auburn hair. Bless her heart. Just a hair of a different color but it hurts just the same!”

Nodding to 2009’s “Telephone” — which sported a Western-themed music video — and 2016’s “Sorry,” Parton effortlessly plays to Beyoncé’s recent penchant for the self-referential. More than just another co-sign from a country music legend, Dolly Parton’s appearance here is a nod to the ways her songwriting has influenced women across genres, including Beyoncé herself. After all, Dolly plainly points out the connection between the soul-baring writing on Bey’s Lemonade album and her own vulnerable ditties.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you like until someone you trust turns you on to some real good s–t. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m here.”

Well said, Willie Nelson. Well said.

Linda Martell — the first commercially successful Black woman in country music — is a legend in every sense of the word. Continuing the trend of country icons introducing each of the album’s chapters, Martell herself appears here to introduce the next sequence of tracks on Cowboy Carter.

“This particular tune stretches across a range of genres,” she teases. “And that’s what makes it a unique listening experience.”

Here we have the album’s first interlude, which also feels like a spiritual extension of its predecessor, “Protector.” “So many roses but none to be picked without thorns/ So be fond of your flaws, dear,” she sings across a swaying melody that sneaks in echoes of mùsica Mexicana. It’s a brief respite before Cowboy Carter bucks its introspective bent and transitions into more light-hearted territory, but it damn sure is gorgeous. For an artist who has been honing her craft of vocal arrangement since her teenage years, Beyoncé has genuinely transformed into a new beast with harmonic work across Cowboy Carter — especially “My Rose.”

Beyoncé has been sing-rapping since 1997, did you really expect her to leave that part of her sonic profile off of Cowboy Carter? On this daring team-up with country star Shaboozey, Beyoncé eschews the gorgeous vocal performances of the album’s front half in favor of one of her most complex rap verses yet.

Before we get there, country legend Linda Martell delivers the album’s thesis statement. “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? Yes, they are,” she says. “In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.” If Bey’s Instagram message wasn’t enough, here’s Ms. Martell spelling out that Beyoncé is her own genre.

Mere seconds after blending country and opera on “Daughter,” Queen Bey uses those strings to signal a rollicking country-rap hybrid. “Y’all been played by the plagiaristic, ain’t gonna give no clout addiction my attention,” she spits. “I ain’t no regular singer, now come get everythin’ you came for.” Shaboozey’s verse adds to the song’s devotion to the ethos of outlaw country, sonically positioning both him and Bey as outlaws of the contemporary country music scene.

Back in her sex bop bag with a bass-heavy track that feels like a post-script to Renaissance’s “Plastic Off the Sofa” / “Virgo’s Groove” double-header, “Desert Eagle” finds Beyoncé going back to her “Partition” days and getting busy in the backseat. “Put on a show and make it nasty/ Desert Eagle in the backseat/ Everything bigger in Texas/ Big body, buss it open, feed you breakfast,” she sings.

It’s nothing we haven’t heard from Bey before, but damn it if she doesn’t do this sound well.

If there’s one thing Beyoncé knows all too well, it’s the drama of being judged by an ever-shifting goalpost. On “Alliigator Tears,” she returns to the reflective analog arrangements of the LP’s earlier tracks. “You say move a mountain/ And I’ll throw on my boots/ You say stop the river from runnin’/ I’ll build a dam or two/ You say change religions/ Now I spend Sundays with you/ Somethin’ ’bout those tears of yours/ How does it feel to be adored?” she croons in the chorus.

Here, she creeps into her falsetto a bit more often than she did on those earlier tracks, evoking a sense of heightened vulnerability that adds some interesting nuance to a song seemingly directed at her detractors.

We all know and love it, and it still sounds great in the full context of Cowboy Carter. There likely won’t be a song as historic as this one in 2024, but the achievements of “Texas Hold ‘Em” don’t start and stop with the Billboard charts. From Rhiannon Giddens‘ plucky banjo to the line dance-ready melody, “Texas Hold ‘Em” is the kind of irresistible country-pop tune that feels effortless, but it takes true skill to really pull off. Lines that could easily be corny land as playful thanks to Beyoncé’s expert manipulation of her timbre, and the whistles and background “hey”s would feel too Mumford & Sons if it weren’t for the trademark Beyoncé swag she employs throughout the track.

Sure, there are better songs on Cowboy Carter, but that doesn’t mean “Texas” isn’t a bop.

If it wasn’t clear before, Cowboy Carter is a character just like the Mother of the House of Chome/Renaissance — and she’s a “Tyrant.” “Every time I ride it, every time I ride it/ I don’t like to sit up in the saddle, boy, I got it/ Just relax, I got this, I got that exotic/ Hips are so hypnotic, I am such a tyrant,” she sing-raps over a sexy, fiddle-laden trap beat courtesy of D.A. Got That Dope. The spiritual successor to “Thique,” “Tyrant” a thrilling addition to Bey’s catalog of sex jams.

In a way, this track is also reminiscent of “America Has A Problem”; if Bey’s booty was America’s problem on that Renaissance cut, then her riding skills are the whole town’s problem on “Tyrant.”

The same day Beyoncé launched her Cowboy Carter era, rising country star Tanner Adell posted on X, writing, “As one of the only black girls in [the] country music scene, I hope Bey decides to sprinkle me with a dash of her magic for a collab.” That hope is now a reality.

On “Blackbiird,” a gorgeous reimagining of The Beatles classic, Beyoncé croons alongside four rising Black women country stars: Adell, Reyna Roberts, Tiera Kennedy and Brittney Spencer. This particular union of artists is especially poignant, given the impetus for the Paul McCartney-penned classic. In Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, the Beatle explains, “I had in mind a black woman, rather than a bird. Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: “Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith; there is hope.”

Applied to the context of black women fighting to take up space in the contemporary country music scene, the elegant harmonies are at once mournful and defiantly forward-facing. Bey’s tone is the anchor here; the texture of her voice evokes warmth through its depth as opposed to the darkness she toyed with on “Ameriican Requiem.” And, of course, there’s an adorable baton-passing moment where Beyoncé lets Adell, a.k.a. “Beyoncé with a lasso,” take the lead on the final verse.

Criminally short yet still ridiculously good, “Flamenco” finds Beyoncé, once again, delivering one of her most outstanding vocal performances. A love song deeply concerned with the innate mortality of this plane of existence, “Flamenco” presents a fairly morose take on flamenco, peppered with some of Bey’s most dizzying runs and riffs.

After two Willie Nelson appearances, another Willie joins in on the fun. On “Just for Fun,” a lyrically existentialist ballad that features chugging, relatively sparse production, country star Willie Jones croons alongside Queen Bey.

It’s a cut that returns the album to its starting point of introspection, with lyrics that read like a heart-baring take on fame-encrusted anxiety. “Here’s to hoping I’ll fall fast asleep tonight/ And I’ll just need to get through this/ Born in the darkness, who brings the light?/ And I just, I need to get through this,” they sing over an arrangement coursing with the rootsy power of gospel music. While the song doesn’t sound like anything its title may indicate, it’s still one of the most gorgeous vocal moments on the album, and a collaboration that begs for a sequel or two.

Released alongside “Texas Hold ‘Em” to kick off the Cowboy Carter campaign, “16 Carriages” stands as a representative for the LP’s more plaintive moments. Written by INK and Beyoncé and co-produced by Raphael Saadiq and Dave Hamelin, “16 Carriages” plays on the reflective, autobiographical songwriting of Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman. “It’s been thirty-eight summers, and I’m not in my bed/ On the back of the bus in a bunk with the band/ Goin’ so hard, now I miss my kids/ Overworked and overwhelmed,” she croons in the pre-chorus.

With a vocal performance that balances innate perseverance with an unflinching look at the unique traumas of growing up in show business, “16 Carriages” remains a standout on Cowboy Carter — even in the presence of so many other home runs.

A common country music songwriting trope is the dynamic between a parent and child, which has also been a grounding theme for much of Beyoncé’s output since her 2013 eponymous surprise album. “Protector” — which finds Bey’s youngest daughter Rumi following in the footsteps of her older sister Blue Ivy — is a tender reflection on the quest to balance the innate desire to protect your children, while also understanding when it’s time to support them as they get ready to spread their wings. Lyrically and thematically, The Lion King: The Gift courses through “Protector,” as Beyoncé croons emphatically of legacy, “I first saw your face in your father’s gaze/ There’s a long line of hands carryin’ your name, mm/ Liftin’ you up, so you will be raised.”

Backed by little more than an acoustic guitar, it’s truly beautiful to hear Beyoncé’s pristine voice against such uncluttered production; her soulful approach to country is laid completely bare in her perfectly understated vocal performance. Expect this one to hit for parents both new and old.

Who opens an album with a quasi-mini-rock opera and closes it with a hymnal? Beyoncé, duh.

On “Amen,” Cowboy Carter’s spirited closer, Beyoncé brings us back to the cinematic grandiosity of opener “Ameriican Requiem,” both sonically and literally. At the top of the record, it’s a bit unclear how Cowboy Carter fits in the same musical universal as Renaissance, but by the time “Amen” rolls around, it’s obvious that the two LPs work in tandem.

Before Beyoncé can sing of her “un-American” life and fashion a new world of glitter and chrome for herself on Renaissance, she must first kill her previous understanding of the country and address why a new world is necessary. “This house was built with blood and bone/ And it crumbled, yes, it crumbled,” she sings. “The statues they made were beautiful/ But they were lies of stone, they werе lies of stone.”

“Amen” closes with an echo of the final verse of “Ameriican Requiem,” cementing Cowboy Carter as not just a musical odyssey through the expanse of the Black Deep South, but also a reckoning of the dynamic between Americana and Black folk in the fight for a brighter, more inclusive future. “Say a prayer for what has been/ We’ll be the ones to purify our Fathers’ sins,” she croons. “American Requiem / Them old ideas are buried here/ Amen.”

From “9 to 5” to “Coat of Many Colors,” Dolly Parton is far and away one of the most prolific and revered songwriters in music history. When you cover a Dolly song, you have no choice but to put your best foot forward. Just as Whitney Houston transformed “I Will Always Love You,” Beyoncé completely freaks “Jolene.”

For her take on Dolly’s classic, Bey goes for a fiercer angle, rewriting most of the song’s lyrics with a more explicitly venomous energy. “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/ I’m warnin’ you, don’t come for my man/ Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/ Don’t take the chance because you think you can,” she sings in the reimagined chorus, her voice caked in a stank, tongue-in-cheek attitude. What really makes Bey’s version pop, however, is her employment of a seemingly all-male choir in the bridge and outro. “I’ma stand by her, she will stand by me, Jolene,” they sing in holy harmony, pledging their allegiance to Beyoncé as she’s spent the entire song doing to them.

Only Beyoncé could make her take on such a beloved song feel so singular and idiosyncratic. And what can top her singing, “Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene/ I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne”?

Shifting from country — tonally the spirit of Shania Twain is in full effect — Bey turns her attention to the breezy melodies of West Coast surf rock with this sultry midtempo number. “Tell me your problems/ I take how you feel/ I show you an exit/ When you’re restless I take the wheel,” she sings in what sounds like a hidden third act complementing 2002’s “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” and 2015’s “Part II (On the Run).”

Between those allusions and the vocal delivery on “honey, honey” — which recalls 2011’s Grammy-winning “Love On Top” — “Bodyguard” fits seamlessly into Beyoncé’s sprawling collections of odes to a love so strong that it literally rewires her brain chemistry. Histrionic? To a degree, yes. But it all feels as grand as a Western epic should, while still presenting as a surefire radio smash.

Of course, there’s also an Easter egg in the fact that “Bodyguard” — which is the title of Whitney Houston‘s film and the accompanying soundtrack that housed her iconic cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” — precedes both the Parton-featuring “Dolly P” and Bey’s “Jolene” take.

Here are two names most people thought would never appear on a track together. Miss Honey B has been getting real freaky since Destiny Fulfilled, so it’s no surprise she brought some of that seductiveness over to the world of Cowboy Carter. “You call me pretty little thing/ And I love to turn him on/ Boy, I’ll let you be my Levi’s jeans/ So you can hug that ass all day long,” she coos on the Post Malone-assisted “Levii’s Jeans.”

With Posty leaving the Auto-Tune behind and employing a surprisingly sexy tone for his verse, “Levii’s Jeans” emerges as one of Cowboy Carter’s best bets at a post-“Texas” radio smash. The melody is complete ear candy, their vocal chemistry is as unlikely as it is endearing, and there’s an air of playfulness about the track that makes it feel timeless.

Between this Beyoncé collab and a Taylor Swift duet due next month, Post Malone is collecting pop icons like Pokémon at this point.

If Cowboy Carter has a spiritual title track, it might be this one. Kicking off this three-part country-house hybrid with an interpolation of Patsy Cline‘s iconic “I Fall to Pieces,” Beyoncé cooks up something borderline insane with “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckiin.”

After spending most of the album exploring country’s past and present, Beyoncé spend the final few Cowboy Carter tracks charting a path for country’s future. With “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckiin” she settles on an innovative blend that updates country’s long-standing relationship with dancing with actual club music. On the album’s controversial album cover, Queen Bey dons full rodeo queen attire, and “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckiin” stands as the ultimate sonic gumbo fit for a Black rodeo queen from Houston, TX.

“Jiffy cornbread, booty corn-fed/ Body rolls at the rodeo/ I’m coming home,” she sings, nodding to 2019’s seminal Homecoming, while also hammering home the album’s overarching theme of preserving, respecting and adding to her family’s legacy. After spending much of her career exploring nearly every facet of popular music and media, Beyoncé is coming home to herself on Cowboy Carter.

Forget “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Beyoncé commences Cowboy Carter with what is essentially “Beyoncé’s Rhapsody”: a gobsmacking amalgamation of ’70s rock motifs that land somewhere between Queen and Sly & the Family Stone. “Nothin’ really ends/ For things to stay the same they have to change again/ Hello, my old friend/ You change your name but not the ways you play pretend,” she croons in the song’s first verse, a nod to the “un-American life” she sings of on Renaissance opener “I’m That Girl.”

Later, after transitioning into a bluesy, verve-packed drawl, Bey sings, “They used to say I spoke, ‘Too country’/ And the rejection came, said I wasn’t, ‘Country ‘nough’/ Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but/ If that ain’t country, tell me, what is?” Here she’s not just touching on the 2016 CMAs incident that served as a catalyst for the creation of Cowboy Carter, she’s also exploring how public perception of her identity has evolved over the course of her two-decade career. Pairing her trademark layered background vocals with fearless squalls and ambitious arrangements, “Ameriican Requiem” signals the beginning of a true epic — cinematic grandiosity at its finest.

Just like she proved with “Church Girl” and “Family Feud” before it, Beyoncé is really good at mixing the sacred with the secular. On “II Hands II Heaven,” Bey likens the all-consuming escapism of relatively mundane things to the power of the Holy Ghost. “Ten thousand steps towards the time of your life / Two hands to Heaven, my whiskey up high, oh/ God only, God only knows why, though,” she sings.

While her vocal performance is staunchly in the Cowboy Carter universe, the backbeat is highly reminiscent of 2023’s “My House,” an original track recorded for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé that served as the closer to the Act I era. By the time she sings “I will carry on” in the second verse, it’s pretty clear that “My House” is, at one point, a part of “II Hands II Heaven” in some capacity. It’s like taking a trail ride and the final destination is a nightclub.

With its shape-shifting structure and its clear nods to the two dominant sonic modes of Act I and Act II, “II Hands II Heaven” is arguably the most “Beyoncé” song on Cowboy Carter. When she croons, “Baby, I’ve been waitin’ my whole life for you,” the “you” in question could be her husband, her God or a more healed version of herself. Regardless of who she’s actually singing about, the line is melodically reminiscent of the gospel stylings that provide a thorough backbone to much of Cowboy Carter.

“Riiverdance” is where Cowboy Carter starts to segue into the world of Renaissance. Blending square dance vibes with the thumping bassline that grounded most of her previous album — with a dash of some drill-adjacent snares for good measure — Beyoncé crafts an ambitious country-dance hybrid that sounds quite unlike anything either genre has offered in the mainstream. And it works.

Between the short verses and the repetitious “bounce on that shit, dance” refrain, there’s a cyclical energy that lends itself well to organized dances like line dances or square dancing. Remember what Linda Martell said about “Ya Ya?” Maybe she was really talking about “Riiverdance,” a thumping ode to what’s possible when the creative process can flow freely without the constraints of genre.

The two Columbia Records powerhouses join forces on this soaring ballad that finds the duo going full Thelma & Louise. What reads as somewhat unlikely collaboration on paper works seamlessly in practice; their smoky tones pair beautifully together, with their gravelly drawls making for a terrific blend. “I’ll be your shotgun rider ’til the day I die/ Smoke out the window flyin’ down the 405/ Yeah, I’ll be your backseat baby, drivin’ you crazy/ Anytime you like,” they belt in the chorus.

Both vocalists are working at the peak of their powers, which makes every choice — whether it’s when the register flips into a slight yodel or the way they throw the note seventy feet into their air on “shotgun” — a home run. “II Most Wanted” universalizes Western tropes in its exploration of undying love, but those vocal performances provide a sense of emotional gravitas that makes the whole thing feel a lot more high-stakes — and that’s only a good thing. Simply put, this is a smash if there ever was one.

Already one of the most stunning songs in her catalog, “Daughter” is an immediate standout on Cowboy Carter. It’s a haunting addition to the lexicon of country murder tunes (think: The Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” or Carrie Underwood’s “Two Black Cadillacs”) that finds Beyoncé mixing opera — she performs a jaw-dropping rendition of “Caro Mio Ben,” in Italian, no less — with a brooding finger-picked guitar melody. She floats between reality and fantasy throughout the track, both modes framed by the advice her father gave her on 2016’s “Daddy Lessons,” which she alludes to with the eerie lines, “Double cross me, I’m just like my father/ I am colder than Titanic water.”

If Cowboy Carter is a new Western epic, “Daughter” is an opera in and of itself, devastatingly macabre yet endlessly alluring.

What do you get if you take a sample of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” mix it with an interpolation of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and douse the whole concoction in the essence of Tina Turner? Well, you get “Ya Ya,” of course, the best song on Cowboy Carter.

A world-rocking mixture of vibrant funk, pounding rock ‘n’ roll drums, relentless soul, and good ole flat-footed singing and squalling, “Ya Ya” is both the culmination of Cowboy Carter’s mission and the progeny of the musical legacy Bey kicked off with 2002’s “Work It Out.” Yes, her approach to sampling and interpolation is as inventive as ever, but she really pushes herself vocally in ways that she never has before. In fact, this might be the closest a studio recording has gotten to capturing just how bombastic Beyoncé’s live vocals are. From raspy runs that seem to trace the entire grand piano to a cheeky exploration of the deepest depths of vocal range, “Ya Ya” is a tour de force.

Of course, “Ya Ya” is a song that wouldn’t be possible without the influence of Tina Turner. After watching Beyoncé perform a rousing rendition of “River Deep – Mountain High” on nearly every date of the Renaissance World Tour, “Ya Ya” lands as more than a tribute. It’s both a loving note of thanks to Ms. Turner for her impact on the world and an ode to the incomparable energy and verve of the Black South.