All the controversy and conversation around Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” over the last few weeks has largely glossed over one important thing: The song is good. It is infectious country trap that doesn’t take anything too seriously. As Lil Nas X sings of decamping for the grasslands of an unsettled America and fleeing on horseback, he is playing up country-ness as a meme, sure, but also as an ideal, the cowboy mythos punctuated by his twangy, hammy performance. Billy Ray Cyrus, of all people, has joined forces with Lil Nas X to stick it to the country establishment on a new cut of “Old Town Road.” In X, he seems to think he’s found a kindred spirit. “When I got thrown off the charts, Waylon Jennings said to me ‘Take this as a compliment’ means you’re doing something great!” he tweeted this week. “Only Outlaws are outlawed. Welcome to the club!”

While Billy Ray hopping on the remix lends a bit more credence to the idea that “Old Town Road” is a country song, his contribution is something of a detriment to the song itself. His part would be better played by someone a bit more spry in and out of cadences. His verse is out of lockstep with X’s, and his lines, about riding a Maserati down Rodeo Drive and buying his baby diamond rings and Fendi sports bras, miss the joke entirely: leaving big city modernity behind for simpler living, marrying the bravado of trap with escapist Western tropes (“Ridin’ on a horse/You can whip your Porsche/I been in the valley/You ain’t been up off that porch,” etc., etc.). For Cyrus, the song is merely an opportunity to position himself as a new type of outlaw. For Lil Nas X, it was always about wanting to “leave everything behind,” about freedom. They have much different agendas. Still, as they gallop side-by-side in the closing moments, at full throat, it’s hard not want to hop on a saddle of your own.