With Morgan Wallen’s abrupt exit from the Saturday Night Live stage at the end of last week’s show making headlines all last week, it was bound to be referenced by the show itself last night. And indeed it was, with viewers (and the show’s studio audience) lapping up two overt mentions: one during the cold open, and another during “Weekend Update.”
But there was a third more subtle reference to the brouhaha over Wallen’s SNL appearance (or in this case, disappearance) that few noticed during last night’s “Bass Lake” sketch.
The sketch starred Jack Black as the frontman for a band called “Big Ricky and Minnows” inviting would-be musicians from the crowd to join his “potluck jam” and getting a multitude of bass players. It was the first guest bass player to take the stage that referenced Wallen with James Austin Johnson sporting a cut-off T-shirt emblazoned with the country star’s now famous Instagram quote, “Get me to God’s Country.”
The shirt itself went unremarked upon in the sketch.
Here's the video #getmetogodscountry pic.twitter.com/dVHDuQW05i
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) April 6, 2025
As we’ve reported, Wallen’s now infamous walk off occurred during SNL’s traditional “goodnights” segment last week. The musical guest briefly appeared alongside host Mikey Madison before exiting home base and walking past the camera without exchanging hugs or handshakes with the show’s cast members. Shortly afterwards, he posted a photo of a private jet to his Instagram story captioned “Get me to God’s country.”
The behavior sparked speculation that Wallen has bad blood with SNL. That rumor only gained steam when it emerged that he’d turned down an appearance in a pre-taped sketch, which ultimately went to Joe Jonas, who was cast on extremely short notice.
Wallen himself has yet to directly comment on his SNL experience, though he did begin selling hats and t-shirts reading“Get me to God’s Country” via his official store last week after his Instagram post became a meme. Notably, SNL went with its own design for Johnson’s t-shirt on last night’s show. Perhaps we’ll see it for sale at the NBC store–hey, if Wallen can cash in on it, why not SNL?
Get stories like this in your inbox: Sign up for LateNighter’s free daily newsletter.
