Luke Bryan pays tribute to small-town traditional Southern values in the new lyric video for "Southern Gentleman."

The song's lyrics extol the virtues of courtly manners, addressing women as "Ma'am," and always treating them with respect.

"You looked at me like I was crazy / When I said ma’am to that little old lady / You ain’t heard talk like that lately / But I could see it’s got you smiling / You say you still remember our first date me cooking you dinner / And how I didn’t even try to kiss you at the end of the date,” Bryan sings in the first verse. 

The lyric video celebrates the same virtues with a series of shots of Southern gentlemen of various types.

"Southern Gentleman" appears on Bryan's new Farm Tour ... Here's to the Farmer EP. He previewed the song with an impromptu live acoustic performance in August.

“What was funny is, I totally did that performance off the cuff, so I’m glad it turned out that good,” he recalls to the Boot. “Most of the time when I go off the cuff like that, I screw ’em up. I didn’t mess that one up. I finally did one good!”

Bryan says the manners and values the song espouses are important to him personally.

“There’s a lot of parameters of that,” he states. “I think holding women in the utmost highest respect and being polite and being a classy person is certainly a definition of a southern gentleman. Conducting yourself with manners and etiquette and being a good person.”

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