Sometimes in a song, coy lyrics paired with winking double entendres deliver one message on the surface but imply something more suggestive just below the belt. Other times, a track will just brazenly shrug off such subtlety.
Country superstar Jason Aldean’s smoldering mid-tempo ballad “Burnin’ It Down” slinks it way into the latter camp. It’s about sex. And that’s all. (OK, drinking, too.)
Things heat up immediately in the first verse with some lyrical foreplay. “You slip your finger through the tear in my T-shirt/You stirrin’ up dirty in the back of my mind.”
What’s in the back of Mr. Aldean’s mind soon drives a big green tractor right up to the front as the song’s chorus spells out what happens next: “We’re just hangin’ around/Burnin’ it down/Sippin’ on some cold Jack Daniel’s/Jammin’ to some old Alabama with you, baby/Layin’ right here naked in my bed/ … We about to get a little tangled up right about now/So, girl, let’s keep burnin’ it down/Burnin’ it down/Burnin’ it down.”
Aldean keeps reiterating how ready he is to have sex with this woman. “Girl, when you want it, you know that I’m on it/You know that I love lovin’ up on you/ … I wanna rock it all night/Baby girl, will you rock it out with me?/I wanna crawl through the dark/Just to feel your heart beat against me.”
See what I mean? Pretty simple. And pretty problematic.
Speaking of problems, the song’s lyric video adds a few more by way of the images it focuses on. We see garments and shoes on the floor beside a rumpled bedspread, then two pairs of feet and two entwined and moving bodies.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
