The song is “Some Beach.” Paul Overstreet co-wrote it with Rory Feek, and it became a No. 1 hit for Blake Shelton in 2004. On Sunday night, October 18, 2026, Blake sang it for Overstreet at the Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony in Nashville, more than thirty years after he stood outside Overstreet’s tour bus as a starstruck teenager.
Blake was one of the surprise guests at the ceremony, and the story he told had the whole room laughing.
A Fan at the Oklahoma State Fair
In 1993, Blake’s favorite country artist was Paul Overstreet. That year, two of his high school friends surprised him with tickets to see Overstreet at the Oklahoma State Fair. Riders in the Sky opened the show.
When it was over, Blake waited outside Overstreet’s bus. Eventually Overstreet came out, said hi, signed an autograph and took a photo with him. Blake told the crowd on Sunday that back then, he wanted to be Paul Overstreet.
It made sense. Overstreet was one of the hottest songwriters in Nashville at the time. BMI named him its Country Songwriter of the Year five years in a row, from 1987 to 1991.
“We Need a Paul Overstreet Song”
After Blake moved to Nashville, his dream was to record one of Overstreet’s songs. Bobby Braddock, the songwriter who produced Blake’s early records, heard about it again and again. Blake kept saying they needed to find a Paul Overstreet song.
They finally did. “Some Beach” came out in July 2004 as the second single from Blake Shelton’s Barn & Grill. It spent four weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and even crossed over to No. 28 on the Hot 100.
It just wasn’t the kind of song Blake had pictured when he was a kid at that state fair. Overstreet was best known for heartfelt songs about love and faith. “Some Beach” is a tongue-in-cheek song about a man getting through one bad day after another by picturing himself on a beach somewhere.
The Line That Brought Down the House
On Sunday, Blake put it this way:
“I never dreamed that my Paul Overstreet song would be a song called ‘Some Beach.'”
The room broke up laughing. Blake added that he was proud of the song anyway, and then he performed it for the man who helped write it.
He got serious for a moment, too. He told Overstreet he had chills right then, and he finished by telling him he loved him and that he deserved the honor.
A Night Full of Old Friends
Blake wasn’t the only one there for Overstreet. Tanya Tucker presented him with his medallion, even though she was recovering from a recent fall. Her concert in Waco, Texas, back in 1973 is what led Overstreet to move to Nashville in the first place.
Dean Dillon, his longtime friend and co-writer, sang “If I Could Bottle This Up,” the song they wrote that George Jones and Shelby Lynne recorded in 1988. Jamey Johnson sang “Forever and Ever, Amen” while Randy Travis watched from the front row.
Overstreet joined the Hall of Fame alongside Tim McGraw and The Stanley Brothers in the Class of 2026.
“You Don’t Get Here by Yourself”
When it was Overstreet’s turn to speak, he went back to the hard years. He remembered his early days in Nashville, getting by on potato salad sandwiches and sometimes sleeping in his car. He talked about meeting his wife and raising six children, and he thanked the people who gave him a place to stay, the artists who recorded his songs and the teams behind them.
He ended with a simple line:
“You don’t get here by yourself.”
On Sunday night, one of the people standing up to honor him was the kid who once waited outside his bus.
Did you know Paul Overstreet was behind “Some Beach”? Which of his songs means the most to you?