Blake Shelton’s ‘Come Back as a Country Boy’ Music Video Was Inspired by … Marvel?!
The music video for "Come Back as a Country Boy" is Blake Shelton to a tee. Not only is it filled with everything a good ol' country boy loves, it combines two of Shelton's greatest passions: His ranch and Marvel, apparently.
"I knew I wanted to do something authentic to me," the country star reveals in a behind-the-scene video that details the official music video, "And every time I say that, my first response is well, I need to do it at the ranch, I need to do it in Oklahoma."
Shelton confesses that he has seen every single Marvel movie ever made, and this served as the inspiration for the video.
"Why can't just a country guy have superpowers?" he asks. "Now wouldn't that be cool if just a good ol' country boy could do things like, you know, push over a giant tree, or with just one swath of his hand, rake up an entire river up on the bank?"
However, filming the "Come Back as a Country Boy" video wasn't as easy as kicking over a tree or swirling up some water. Just like working on a real Marvel movie, things got a little dangerous on set. According to Shelton, there's only so much you can do with CGI, so the fire you see in the video was a real fire, and Shelton found himself pretty close to the flames.
"Too close for comfort, I'll tell you that," he admits. "We were able to shoot for seconds at a time before I'm like, 'Hold up, oh my god, I'm dying.'"
In the behind-the-scenes video at the 4:15 mark, you can see Shelton singing the chorus in front of the flames before cursing and stumbling out of the scene.
Ultimately, the "God's Country" singer is proud of how everything turned out.
"It's amazing what a hundred billion dollars can get you," he jokes.
The filming process also opened him up to some new experiences and techniques. "There were some people there that I've never seen at video shoots before saying things that I've never heard," he reveals. "And I just, I realized after awhile I'm just gonna go with it no matter how stupid I feel in this moment, and I'm just gonna do it and hope that they make it look cool in the end."
Shelton wanted his music video to be as special as the song itself. He wanted it to speak to the country fans who listen to Hank Williams Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd — something he seems to be striving for in his music lately.
"This particular song is as least a first cousin to 'God's Country,'" he says, "And that's what excites me about it the most. We were able to tap into something with 'God's Country' that really fired up, I think, just the country fanbase in general."
"It doesn't have as much of a rock edge as 'God's Country' did, but it's got the same kind of personality. It's an anthem."