It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Aaron Tippin, Tracy Lawrence, Reba, Clay Walker

By Jonny Brick

1992 Aaron Tippin – There Ain’t Nothin Wrong with the Radio

Tippin co-wrote this, his first number one, having taken part in a TV talent show; he went on to write some minor hits for other artists.

With his mullet and boisterousness, mixing Billy Ray Cyrus and Garth Brooks, he can be none more 1992, and this is a song for rural folk that comes to praise the very instrument giving Cyrus, Brooks and Tippin success.

‘The older she gets, the slower we go,’ he complains of a car that is not a Cadillac or a Rolls, and which ‘needs a carburettor, a set of plug wires…the wipers don’t work and the horn don’t blow’. There is no comparison to a woman, positive or otherwise; the car is a car.

1994 Tracy Lawrence – If The Good Die Young

A fourth chart-topper from his second album Alibis, this song is fairly short for a nineties number one; Lawrence says what he needs to say inside 2 minutes 30.

He recalls two incidents from his childhood which marked him as a naughty boy: at the age of seven he muddies his church clothes, with his dad telling his mum to ‘leave the boy alone’; then aged 17 he is caught speeding in his ‘hot-rod Ford…at 104’ and is warned by a judge to slow down.

‘I’m gonna live forever if the good die young!’ Lawrence cries, and plenty of listeners would have found an affinity with the narrator who has ‘a good heart…wouldn’t hurt a soul’.

1995 Reba – The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

She really knows how to pick those hits. This one opens with a lady who has been ‘alone way too long’ walking into a bar (‘the dark of the neon light’). She had hoped to find ‘some lastin’ comfort in the arms of a lover’s fire’, but when she is propositioned by a married man, she refuses him, knowing that it would only be a one-night thing.

There is a key change, as well as some liquid guitar from Dann Huff, but the story is inconsistent: is the woman really hellbent on finding a man if she suddenly relocates her moral compass? We can’t have Reba sleeping around, though, so this is on brand for a singer who instructs her audience how to live right.

1997 Clay Walker – Rumor Has It

When Walker released this uptempo love song, initially to his own website, he had already gone public with his Multiple Sclerosis. It was to be his final number one.

‘I’ve got a ring and a plan,’ he tells his beloved, with an ‘unexplainable smile’ on his face. The song is pleasant and repeats its chorus, complete with ‘roses and wine’, several times. There’s also a strong piano part played by Steve Nathan, and Walker’s vocals are very, very country.

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