Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Is On The New Brad Paisley Single

In the year since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to be enjoying his newfound global-celebrity status. In the past year, Zelenskyy has popped up at awards shows and hung out with movie stars like Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, and now he’s on a damn Brad Paisley song.

Brad Paisley, the affable country star, is evidently still making clumsy and well-intentioned statements of unity a full decade after “Accidental Racist.” Paisley is getting ready to release a new album called Son Of The Mountain, and first single “Same Here” is about how all people really, deep down, want the same things. Paisley introduces Zelenskyy as his “friend across the ocean”: “He’s got his own kind of football team that lets him down every year/ A wife he loves and a bunch of dreams for his country he holds so dear.”

Sadly, Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not sing on “Same Here.” Instead, he’s got a quick little dialogue with Brad Paisley, where he says the same kind of thing about how all people are really alike: “We speak different languages in our life. Yes, but I think we appreciate the same things — children, freedom, our flag, our soldiers, our people.” The song raises money for Zelenskyy’s United24 initiative and its Ukrainian relief efforts. In a press release, Brad Paisley has this to say:

“Same Here” with President Zelenskyy is one of the pieces of this album that represents so much a part of my journey from West Virginia to now. One of the prevailing themes on this album is freedom. That’s something I truly believe in, and think is our most precious gift as Americans. The song is grounded in observing life in the United States, then to people from other countries who speak different languages and to one across the ocean that’s at war. We start to realize how similar we all are.

That’s one of the things the President says in the song, “There is no distance between our two countries in such values.” They are longing for what we as Americans have already. It’s heartbreaking watching this struggle in modern time for freedom and democracy and the ability to just simply be who they want to be in peace. And this song is something that I hope resonates not only with my fans and people in America, but people anywhere that feel a similar desire to be free and safe and happy. Because I really do believe that as human beings when you take away the banners that determine what country we all live in, we all want the same things.

Here’s the song: