He said he didn’t mean to, but don’t believe it. Shade was definitely thrown…

The lyrics speak for themselves:

“Then the girl from the small town
Took off the old town
Put on a little Hank junior (Thank God)
Hell right
She got all her rowdy friends coming over tonight”

Let’s be honest though, Shelton and Adkins are just the performers. They didn’t write the song, Michael Hardy, David Garcia and Brett Tyler penned the tune.

Hardy, who co-wrote Shelton’s latest #1 “God’s Country” says the mention of “Old Town Road” in that line was more a matter of timing- “It’s the song that they’re playing the crap out of, and it’s this new, fresh thing,” he explains, later sharing that the song was written in May. “But people are pissed.”

The criticism doesn’t bother Hardy. “In the room that day, we were like, ‘Hell yeah,’ and I’m still like, ‘Hell yeah… Whatever, dude, I don’t know, just get mad if you want, but I think it’s a cool line,” Hardy adds, “and I’m sticking to that, always.”

Here’s my beef. Shelton obviously had final call on any edits, none were made. I just want Shelton to be honest about it. When someone asked him “was the line referring to ‘Old Town Road’ meant to be a diss?” the correct answer should have been ‘Hell Right is was’.  Instead he denied it, actually , he didn’t… his ‘spokesperson’ did: “It’s absolutely not throwing any kind of shade at Lil Nas X at all. Blake says this literally has nothing to do with anything at all except how much the song is played,” said the spokesperson according to Variety. “It could have been ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ or any other [overplayed] song.”