Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car earned him listeners beyond his loyal country music audience. The song Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma has extended Combs’ fan base even further. Three-time Grammy nominee Luke Combs has twice won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award (2021 and 2022). This is the CMA’s highest accolade. Combs is also an elected member of the notoriously picky Grand Ole Opry, which shows he has credibility in traditional country circles.
Partly due to its prominence on the Twisters soundtrack – it works superbly in the blockbuster movie and it is the lead single from the OST – and partly due to its gale-force guitar riffing, Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma is attracting listeners who claim not to like country music. As a Reddit user comments: “My brother is the typical hip 16yo who always rags on me for loving country. He saw Twisters and now is obsessed with this song.” Let’s watch this powerful live version from the CMA Awards in November 2024.
An audience member at the CMA Awards wrote on Reddit: “It’s amazing. I wanted to faint hearing it live. He’s so damn good.” The overwhelmingly enthusiastic YouTube comments agree that the song is, if anything, even more powerful live than on record. Lorrieg writes, “Brought the house down with that great performance! You’re always the greatest performer, Luke!” Country-Café says, “What a song, what an artist, what a show! WOW!” Ryan Fonte quips, “THE GOAT. He doesn’t need autotune, autotune needs him.”
If you’ve seen Twisters, you may be surprised that Combs and co-writers Jessi Alexander and Jonathan Singleton wrote their soundtrack song without seeing scenes from the 2024 blockbuster. Combs says the filmmakers outlined the sound and themes they were hoping for. He added that knowing Twister, the 1996 movie which Twisters follows as a stand-alone sequel, helped. He said he had a lot of fun writing the song. Our next video is a behind-the-scenes look at the acclaimed video for Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.
Combs admits that Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma is “sort of abstract, lyrically speaking. We were trying to sonically match the vibe that they were looking for.” As you’ve heard, the song evokes the adrenaline rush of driving full-tilt into a twister, tempered by the foreboding dread that the journey may not end well. “I need the thrill,” Combs sings, “so I keep chasing that same old devil down the same old dead-end highway.”
The lyrics contain apparent contradictions. Take the lines “Scared of nothing and I’m scared to death, I can’t breathe and I catch my breath,” and “I keep running, but I’m standing still, pray for peace, but I need the thrill.” Interviewed by Audacy, Luke Combs says he loves the tension created by the “juxtaposing lines” and that this was some of his “favourite stuff in this tune.” With Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma, as with Fast Car, Luke Combs keeps it country while drawing in fans who habitually avoid the genre by a country mile.