It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Travis Tritt, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Shenandoah

By Jonny Brick

1990 Travis Tritt – Help Me Hold On

Here’s Tritt’s first number one, a plea to his beloved not to walk out on him. The opening image of the lady packing a suitcase places us right in the middle of a pivotal moment in their relationship and sets up the four minutes to follow. He is achingly apologetic: ‘I swear to you I’ll listen’, ‘scared that I’ll go crazy once you’re gone’, ‘I’ll pay any price it takes to keep you satisfied’.

How many listeners will have been moved to utter similar sentiments? They too might be motivated to say: ‘Once our love was strong, it can be again’. There’s also a quick four bars of electric guitar with some marvellous triplet runs just before the final chorus.

1991 George Strait – If I Know Me

By this point in his career, Strait could sing an instruction manual and have a hit; he was about to star in a movie, Pure Country, that consolidated his superstar status. As in Tritt’s song, the narrator is in a romantic crisis – ‘we both said some things I know we never meant’ – and this time he has driven away from home. But, if Strait knows the type of man he is, he’ll ‘turn this car around…and I’ll come runnin’ back to you’.

The lyrical piano line is memorable, as is the lyric where Strait sings ‘truth be known you’re dyin’, cryin’, lyin’ there in bed’. It’s a love song where the singer proves that his love is greater than any argument, advising the listener to apologise for any hot-headedness or argument.

1992 Brooks & Dunn – Neon Moon

Why is it that some songs last and others do not? Why do we hear this song more than most other Brooks & Dunn hits? It’s timeless, for one thing, because its lyric reminds people that drinking in ‘a rundown bar’ with melancholy songs on the jukebox can soothe a heartache: ‘there’s always room here for the lonely’.

Narrator Ronnie Dunn, who wrote the song, sits alone at a table for two, a stark image. While a fiddle melody plays prominently in the second verse, he laments the ‘lies that I’ve lied’ and casts his mind back to when he and his former flame sat in that very bar. There’s a smart mix too of the abstract and the concrete as his ‘broken dreams dance in and out of the beams’.

1994 Shenandoah – If Bubba Can Dance (I Can Too)

Ever ruthless, Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe calls this song ‘terrible’. It was inspired by line dancing video adverts that featured on CMT; the opening line is ‘he saw it on TV and ordered that video’, which means our protagonist wants to ‘scoot’, ‘slide’, ‘two-step’ and ‘glide’ just like the man in the song’s title. ‘If he’s brave enough’ to dance, then so should Shenandoah singer Marty Raybon.

The song has a very punchy backbeat which would have assisted line-dancers of the time, while there’s also a long guitar solo in the middle of the song.