It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Dolly Parton and Ricky van Shelton, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Mark Wills

By Jonny Brick

1991 Dolly Parton and Ricky van Shelton – Rockin Years

Written by Dolly’s brother Floyd, this waltz recalls her old duets with Porter Wagoner on TV. The pair take turns singing lines of the verses before harmonising over the chorus, which begins with the insistent line: ‘rockin’ chairs, rockin’ babies, rockabye, Rock of Ages’. They each promise to be faithful to each other, Dolly singing how her ‘heart has only room for one’.

The only thing to fault is the dull thud of the snare drum on the third beat of every bar in the chorus, which the fiddle and pedal steel do their best to overcome.

1996 Shania Twain – You Win My Love

Before she unleashed Come On Over and its dozen hits on to the world, Shania mostly kept to the country chart and scored another chart-topper with this one, which she performed at Glastonbury in 2024. It was written for her by producer husband Mutt Lange and is as irresistible as his work with Bryan Adams, Def Leppard and AC/DC.

The man whose love she gives makes her ‘motor run’, a metaphor elaborately set up in the opening verse: she calls herself ‘a classy little chassis…the kind you can’t slow down’. The verse calls for the type of man who is similar to a ’55 Chevy’, ‘pickup truck’ or ‘Cadillac with a jacuzzi in the back’, while the middle section adds ‘a heartbreak Harley’ and ‘sexy long stretch limousine’. There is a key change too.

1998 Garth Brooks – Two Piña Coladas

When you’re the hottest country star of the decade, you get the pick of Music Row’s best songs. This one would have gone to Kenny Chesney a few years later had Garth not snaffled it for his album Sevens, from which it was one of four number one hits.

‘Troubles? I forgot ’em! I buried ’em in the sand!’ boasts the singer, via a Captain Morgan advert. The rhyme scheme (‘blues/news/TV/you/proved/sea’) helps make the song memorable, while the singalong chorus includes the image of having one drink ‘for each hand’. He tosses away his blues in a manner similar to several acts who previewed Chesney’s adoption of the Gulf & Western sound of Jimmy Buffett.

1999 Mark Wills – Wish You Were Here

This piano ballad, the title track of Wills’ third album, is at the intersection point of Christian and pop music. It was co-written by his fellow Opry member Bill Anderson.

The song opens with the image of a couple kissing just before the man boards a plane; he then sends a postcard off to her from ‘paradise’, writing that he wishes to ‘touch your face’. In the second verse, it transpires that his flight home crashed with no survivors, but wretchedly the postcard reaches her. The key lyric, of course, is that he is in ‘paradise’ on holiday but in the hereafter following the crash; the same inference can be made to ‘some folks we know’.

Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe cannot find one redeeming feature in the song, calling it ‘a morbid, maudlin ballad’ sung by a ‘comatose’ narrator, which seems unfair.

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