Ronnie Dunn Sings for America’s Working Class in ‘Cost of Livin” Video

Ronnie Dunn's new song, 'Cost of Livin', paints a portrait that working class America is becoming all too familiar with. The video for it fills in the gaps by taking a trip through a Tennessee tire plant that's preparing to close, leaving 1,900 people jobless. It's a poignant four-minute documentary filled with characters we all recognize in one way or another.

Songwriter Phillip Coleman begins the video by introducing the tire plant and describing the effects its closing will have on the small town. Coleman was struggling himself before Dunn decided to cut the ballad; in a way, the song is his story. The video captures the guarded optimism that workers have about their prospects moving forward. Each seems to understand that finding a new source of income will be difficult, but wallowing in self-pity won't pay the bills.

Eventually, the clip moves from the tire plant to the townsfolk and the city streets. Viewers catch a glimpse of the broken economy a layoff of this magnitude often leads to. Dunn doesn't play a roll in the narrative, only sitting on a gas pump outside a vacant gas station singing his song.

'Cost of Livin'' is on Ronnie Dunn's new self-titled album, in stores now.

Watch the Ronnie Dunn 'Cost of Livin'' Video