About The Song
“Are You Ready for the Country” is Waylon Jennings’ 1976 take on a Neil Young song, used as both the opening track and title cut of his album Are You Ready for the Country. The LP was released by RCA Victor in June 1976, recorded at Sound Labs in Hollywood between late March and late April, and co-produced by Jennings and Ken Mansfield. Coming right after the runaway success of the compilation Wanted! The Outlaws, it was his first solo studio album in the wake of the outlaw boom and became a key document of that period.
The title track gave the album its name and its tone. Young had first released “Are You Ready for the Country” on his 1972 album Harvest, a loose, slightly ominous piece cut at his California ranch with a small band. Jennings heard something in the song that fit his own mid-’70s situation: a country star pushing back against industry expectations and broadening his sound with rock influences. By opening the record with this cover, he signaled that the “country” he had in mind was not just a Nashville radio format but a wider, rougher musical territory.
Sessions for the album brought Jennings back to Hollywood for the first time since his early-1960s A&M days. The core band included familiar Waylors along with steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, pianist and arranger Barny Robertson and other Los Angeles players. Accounts of the recordings describe basic tracks being cut quickly over a few days, with Jennings and Mansfield shaping arrangements that could sit comfortably next to rock material by Neil Young, the Marshall Tucker Band and Dr. Hook while still sounding like Waylon. The title track’s sound—thick electric guitars, steady rhythm section, prominent steel and a dry, upfront vocal—became a template for the record as a whole.
In Young’s original, listeners and critics have heard echoes of early-1970s political unease and a vague, restless sense of leaving one situation for another. When Jennings cut the song four years later, writers began to read it differently. A later American Songwriter piece notes that, in his hands, the question “Are you ready for the country?” sounded like an answer back to the Nashville establishment, a hint that he was redefining what “country” could mean on his own terms. Lines about “old gray dog” and “shotgun” turned into images of a tougher, more independent stance rather than a strictly anti-war message.
The performance is built around Jennings’ baritone, relaxed but slightly menacing, sitting on top of a mid-tempo groove. Electric guitars trade licks with Mooney’s steel, and the band leans into a swampy feel that connects his Texas roots to the rock textures of the mid-’70s. Compared with more strictly country hits he’d had earlier in the decade, this track feels closer to roots-rock, but the phrasing, the sense of swing and the steel lines keep it anchored firmly in his outlaw country world. The production leaves enough space for the rhythm section to breathe, giving the song a live, almost jam-like energy while staying under three and a half minutes for radio.
Released as a single from the album, “Are You Ready for the Country” did well on the charts. It reached No. 7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and climbed to No. 3 on the Canadian country chart. The parent album topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart for ten weeks, crossed over to No. 34 on the main Billboard 200, and was certified gold by the RIAA in 1977 for sales of more than 500,000 copies. The song also found a life beyond radio; for example, Jennings’ version was later used in the 1982 film adaptation of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, helping to tie its mood of tension and fatalism to a wider audience.
Over time, “Are You Ready for the Country” has come to represent several things at once: a bridge between Neil Young’s early-’70s rock and Jennings’ mid-’70s outlaw country, a statement of artistic independence after the success of Wanted! The Outlaws, and an example of how Jennings could reshape someone else’s song until it felt entirely his own. He later worked directly with Young on the duet “Bound for Glory” in 1985, but this earlier cover had already shown how closely their musical worlds could overlap. The track remains a staple on reissues of the album and on Jennings compilations, often singled out as one of the cuts that best captures his blend of grit, groove and defiance in the mid-1970s.
Video
Lyric
Slippin’ and a slidin’ playin’ dominos
Leftin’ and a rightin’ ain’t a crime you know
Well, I gotta tell the story
Before it’s time to go
Are you ready for the country
Are you ready for me
Are you ready for the country
Ain’t that a sight to see
Talkin’ to a preacher
Said God was on his side
Talkin’ to a butcher
They both were sellin’ hides
Well, I gotta tell the story boys
I don’t know the reason why
Are you ready for the country
Are you ready for me
Are you ready for the country
Ain’t that a sight to see
Are you ready for the country
Are you ready for me
Better get ready for the country
Get ready for me
Are you ready for the country
(Are you) ready for me
Are you ready for the country
Ain’t that a sight to see