Old Dominion Tell The Story Behind Their New Summer Anthem, ‘I Was On A Boat That Day’

Old Dominion shared the official music video for their wildly successful single, “I Was On A Boat That Day,” a song that will quickly become the soundtrack to your summer.

The clip, directed by Mason Allen, fittingly takes place out on the water and has the band members, consisting of Matthew Ramsey, Trevor Rosen, Brad Tursi, Whit Sellers, and Geoff Sprung partying it up as they perform their breezy breakup tune live. Throughout the video, viewers can see partygoers dancing, smiling, and catching a buzz, as Old Dominion sings of enjoying their summer days on a boat after experiencing lost love.

“Is she gone for the summer, gone for the night? / Gone for the weekend or the rest of my life? / Was she laughing, was she crying / As she walked away? / I can’t say / I was on a boat that day / The river was rolling / I was getting my float on / She was telling me so long / I was already so long gone,” lead singer Ramsey belts out the song’s chant-worthy hook.

Old Dominion, who wrote “I Was On A Boat That Day” with lauded songwriters Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, recently talked about the track and revealed the song came from an idea they had years ago.

“We had that idea for literally seven, eight years,” Old Dominion’s Ramsey told The Ty Bentli Show on Apple Music Country of the ear-grabbing tune, “We started writing this song back when we were writing ‘Break Up With Him.’ We’ve been kicking around this idea for that long, but we never really brought it to life.”

“Actually, it kind of turned into a joke title. We would throw it out and be like, “Oh yeah. We’re never going to write that song.” And then we were in Asheville, North Carolina when we were making this album. And for whatever reason that day, it just felt right,” he continued. “We threw it out, and the idea presented itself in a way that it never had before, which is the storyline of just a dude like, ‘You know what? Screw it. I don’t really care. I’m on a boat. I can’t have a bad day. So, it was just a way to write a fun song we had no real emotional attachment to. It was just something fun for us to have a good time with, [in the] same way ‘Break Up With Him’ really came about was just, ‘Let’s just make each other smile.’ And that’s what we did.”

“I Was On A Boat That Day” is the first taste of new music from the 2021 ACM Vocal Group of the Year winners since their 2019 self-titled, third full-length album, Old Dominion.

And, the band has plenty more to look forward to, as they will return to the road later this year as part of their 2021 We Are Old Dominion: Live at The Ballpark Tour. On the trek, fans can look for the guys performing “high-octane, crowd-pleasing anthems, deep cuts, and a handful of surprises.” Old Dominion’s Ballpark Tour officially kicks off in Jackson, Tennessee on July 17 at The Ballpark at Jackson.