Nashvile, Tenn. ? Country singer Brad Paisley has to be feeling a little like a bartender these days.

His hit single, “Alcohol,” a series of funny observations about imbibing that he wrote from the viewpoint of the booze, has people stopping him in stores and airports to share their drinking stories. In the song he sings, “I get blamed at your wedding reception, for your best man’s embarrassing speech.”

“They’ll just come out of nowhere,” says Paisley, who’s clearly amused by the whole thing and begins recounting a recent episode in which a woman approached him and said, “You’re not going to believe the wedding we went to last week. The best man started his toast with ‘I’ve got a confession to make…”‘

The song, from Paisley’s new album out Tuesday, “Time Well Wasted,” also includes the lines “I’ve influenced kings and world leaders. I helped Hemingway write like he did. And I’ll bet you a drink or two that I can make you put that lampshade on your head.”

Brad Paisley's Alcohol

Paisley, 32, says he’s not condoning or chastising drinking, just observing how many memories – both good and bad – are tied to it.

“I make my living because people drink, when you think about it,” he says.

Since his first hit, “He Didn’t Have to Be” in 1999, the native of Glen Dale, W.Va., steadily has built a following with his fleet guitar picking and fun, clever songs such as “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” “Celebrity” and “Mud On the Tires.”

In person, Paisley is amicable and laid back – literally – reclining on a couch in his management office. He wears a T-shirt, jeans, black sneakers and laughs a lot.

He shares a story about how his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley (“Father of the Bride”), stumbled on a C chord by chance while messing around with his guitar, so he recorded it and used it in on the album for a lark.

“Nobody knows that,” he says. “I wouldn’t call it her guitar-playing debut, though.”