The "Forever Country" single is epic -- but its accompanying music video might be even more so. In the clip above, readers can get a peek behind the scenes of the project's filming.

The "Forever Country" clip, directed by Grammy Award-winning director Joseph Kahn, includes appearances by everyone from Charley Pride to Kacey Musgraves. As the above video shows, the stars assembled at a green screen studio to perform their parts of the song, and the final product, Kahn explains, features scenes that span around the world but always come back to Nashville and country scenery.

The all-star cast came together for the clip and single -- an impressive medley of John Denver‘s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Willie Nelson‘s “On the Road Again” and Dolly Parton‘s “I Will Always Love You" -- to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the CMA Awards. Little Big Town call the experience "unreal" -- a sentiment that's shared by pretty much everyone involved.

"I'm supposed to be emoting," says Trisha Yearwood, "and I'm just really going, 'This is so cool!'"

CMA Award-winning songwriter Shane McAnally produced "Forever Country" and calls crafting the mashup "a very scary process." The tunesmith admits that he didn't think such a project would work in country music -- "[W]e tell stories. And we can't just cut into them and take a piece" -- but as the idea began to take shape, he saw how the iconic songs could all work together.

"When you play ["I Will Always Love You"] over "Take Me Home, Country Roads," they somehow take on a life together, and it feels almost like you're speaking more to the music, and to country music specifically, when you say, 'I will always love you.' It feels meant to be," McAnally explains, adding that, when it came to "On the Road Again," "The line 'The life I love is making music with my friends' kept coming into my mind, and "On the Road Again" felt essential."

"Forever Country" is available for download on iTunes; proceeds are going to the CMA Foundation's music education work.

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