Nashville.com Your Guide to Music, Events, Restaurants & Things to Do
There may not be a better way to unveil an album called Hello, Honky Tonk than from inside a honky tonk.
Tulsa-born singer-songwriter Kaitlin Butts has taken that idea and turned it into a weeklong international bar crawl, revealing the track listing for her fourth studio album, Hello, Honky Tonk, one song — and one legendary music venue — at a time. The album arrives October 30 via Republic Records.
Beginning Monday, honky tonks and music venues from Nashville and Tulsa to Texas, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Sydney and London have each revealed a new song from the 14-track album.
Among the venues participating are Billy Bob’s Texas, Cain’s Ballroom, the Grand Ole Opry, Luckenbach Texas, John T. Floore’s Country Store, Skinny Dennis, the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Jolene’s in Sydney and Duke’s of Highgate in London.
“Hello, Honky Tonk is really a world of its own,” Butts says. “There are all these characters and stories and little moments happening inside of it, so I thought it would be fun to let the places that inspired that world introduce the songs. Honky tonks are where these stories live, so who better to tell you what’s coming?”
Hello, Honky Tonk Track Listing
- Introducing: Hello Honky Tonk — Kaitlin Butts
- I Wanna Be Bad — Kaitlin Butts, Natalie Hemby
- The Bartender — Kaitlin Butts, Tofer Brown, Natalie Hemby
- Never Really Mine — Kaitlin Butts, Lola Kirke, Maggie Antone
- I Make Cowboys Cry — Kaitlin Butts, Shane McAnally
- The Joker — Kaitlin Butts, Jessie Jo Dillon, Sasha Alex Sloan
- Everybody Wanna Sing a Country Song — Kaitlin Butts, Tofer Brown, Luke White
- What More Could You Want — Kaitlin Butts, Tofer Brown, Natalie Hemby
- Still Got It — Kaitlin Butts
- Crazy I Can Be — Kaitlin Butts, Tofer Brown, Lauren Hungate
- That Makes One Of Us — Kaitlin Butts, Lori McKenna
- Hell I Don’t Know — Kaitlin Butts, Natalie Hemby, Luke Dick
- Bacon Naked (Take It From Me) — Kaitlin Butts, Natalie Hemby
- Midnight I’ll Always Be Yours — Kaitlin Butts, Jessi Alexander, Jon Randall
The full list of participating venues includes Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth, Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Luckenbach Texas, Showboat Saloon in Wisconsin Dells, Jolene’s in Sydney, the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming, Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City, John T. Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, Texas, Nashville’s Skinny Dennis, Harry’s Northgate in College Station, Duke’s of Highgate in London, Brewster Street in Corpus Christi and The Newberry in Great Falls, Montana.
The track list reveal follows several releases from the upcoming album, including “What More Could You Want,” “I Wanna Be Bad” and “Never Really Mine.”
“What More Could You Want” is a piano-driven, Broadway-ready song that finds Butts looking at the push and pull of life as a performer.
“That song feels exactly word for word what I feel like every day,” Butts says. “This tug and pull of loving this and craving this and loving to be on stage, loving every creative moment but also being stressed out wondering, ‘Do you like me? Do I need to be shinier? Do you want more?’”
Named one of Rolling Stone’s most anticipated albums of 2026, Hello, Honky Tonk is built around the nightlife, characters and stories Butts has encountered throughout her years on the road.
Recorded in Nashville with producer Tofer Brown, the album imagines a honky tonk populated by a colorful cast of characters — the bartender, the entertainer, the troublemaker, the regulars and everyone else who finds their way through the door.
Butts drew inspiration from the vaudeville-style storytelling of Chicago and Disney World’s Country Bear Musical Jamboree while creating the album’s world.
“The thought behind the concept was how in Chicago, the character Roxie Hart is dreaming up what her show would look like and all the people in it,” Butts says. “I picture all of this happening at Skinny Dennis here in Nashville. These are all the different people in the room. There’s the bar fight that’s happening. There’s the bad girl that just got off work. There’s me being the entertainer. There are so many people that really love the nightlife. It’s a connector for people.”
Hello, Honky Tonk follows Butts’ critically acclaimed 2024 album Roadrunner!, which was inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and appeared on numerous year-end best-of lists. The album also produced her viral anthem “You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead To Me),” which has surpassed 157 million TikTok views and 67 million global streams.
Butts will celebrate the new album with her Hello, Honky Tonk Live and In Person Tour, kicking off October 29 at Nashville’s Skinny Dennis (sold out) — one day before the album officially arrives.
