It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Reba, Trisha Yearwood.
By Jonny Brick
1992 Reba – Is There Life Out There
Two from Reba and two from Trisha this week, two of the top country mononyms of the 1990s. This song was Reba’s 24th top 10 hit in a row, and she still performs it towards the end of her live set. It wasn’t even meant for her, only landing in her lap when an anonymous singer wanted to change the chorus lyric that mentions life ‘beyond her family and her home’, which is perhaps the point of the song.
So often the champion of the American rural woman, Reba sells the lyric over an arrangement that is MOR soft rock rather than country, akin to Hold On by Wilson Phillips. She tells the story of a woman who married young and feels ‘there’s something more’ even though ‘she doesn’t want to leave’ her home and family.
It is empowering in the very best sense, and plenty of listeners would, like the character in the song, have ‘never learned to live for today’. There is a key change, all the better to convince the listener to take that leap and ‘do what she dares’, and a false ending too.
1995 Trisha Yearwood – Thinkin’ About You
Co-written by the great Tom Shapiro, this was the title track of Trisha’s fifth album. It’s a ballad of infatuation which doesn’t usually make the hits portion of a typical gig of hers, perhaps because it’s quite slight; a mood rather than a song, with no real chorus.
The song is an extended, melodic meditation on amorousness, where the narrator’s ‘single minded fascination’ drives her to call her beau late at night. That’s Lee Roy Parnell on the slide guitar, adding licks and fills around Trisha’s vocal line, and perhaps playing the role of the man.
1997 Reba – How Was I To Know
Here’s a rarity: a song written by three women, Cathy Majeski, Sunny Russ and Stephony Smith (as well as Sonny Russ).
Reba plays a woman spurned but happy to be alone; rather than ‘shattered dreams and a broken heart’, she ‘had what it takes all along’ to stay strong. Once again, this is on brand for the champion of the American rural woman: ‘turned out to be my freedom in disguise,’ she concludes, a long way from the person who ‘gave up on myself’.
As with Is There Life Out There, the MOR arrangement provides a bed upon which Reba can express herself, and it would comfort so many people who might, like her narrator, have ‘put too much faith in someone else’. There’s also a terrific guitar solo from Kent Wells.
1998 Trisha Yearwood – A Perfect Love
Sometimes the coincidences just fall into place in this column. Sunny Russ and Stephony Smith had a chart-topper with this one too, which is a jubilant love song set to the same driving rhythm as Heads Carolina by Jo Dee Messina.
According to Sunny and Stephony, perfection is exchanging glances over coffee while reading the Sunday paper ‘front to back’, then going for a drive, seeing their folks and going for a lakeside walk. ‘I know you love me just because’ is a frothy hook to match the buoyant pop/rock arrangement.
It’s not a showstopper like Walkaway Joe or How Do I Love, but it varies the tempo of a typical Trisha set, fitting in snugly alongside She’s In Love With The Boy.
Chad J Country will be playing one of Jonny’s selections each week in his Wednesday show
Follow Jonny through The Nineties episode by episode.
For more country music evangelism, go to countrywol.com where you can read Monday essays, Friday reviews and Sunday Hymn Sheets. Follow Jonny’s Country Music Calendar at the Country Way of Life Facebook page (facebook.com/acountrywayoflife).
Any Given Songday and Stuck at Two, the pair of series which celebrate the centenary of the Grand Ole Opry, can be found at CountryWOL.com
