Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band Song Info
"Chicken Fried" is a song by country music group Zac Brown Band, which frontman Zac Brown co-wrote with Wyatt Durrette. The song was first recorded in 2003 for the 2004 album Home Grown. A second version was then released in 2006 by the Lost Trailers, whose version was released as a single but withdrawn from radio. Two years later, the Zac Brown Band re-recorded the song and released it as the first single from their album The Foundation. In late 2008, it became their first chart single, as well as their first #1 hit on the Billboard country charts. The Zac Brown Band version was also featured in the 2008 film Witless Protection, starring Larry the Cable Guy. Brown began co-writing "Chicken Fried" with Wyatt Durrette several years before the song's release. The two met when Brown was playing at a tavern in Atlanta, Georgia. According to Country Weekly magazine, Brown had already started the song, when he and Durrette began listing off "things that are very southern or characteristic of the South to put into this song." The song was completed gradually over several years. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Brown decided to add the third verse, which has a patriotic theme ("I thank God for my life / For the stars and stripes…"). Although he had already begun performing the song, he still considered it unfinished until he added a line to the second verse. The patriotic theme and southern cuisine was the band's inspiration to record this song. The song has also been placed at #39 for the Taste of Country's "Top 100 Country Songs of All Time" chart.
