It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from George Strait, Joe Diffie, Billy Ray Cyrus, Patty Loveless

By Jonny Brick

1990 George Strait – Love Without End Amen

Written by Aaron Barker, this stayed at number one for five weeks. Like Even Though I’m Leaving by Luke Combs, it’s a song that celebrates the connection between father and son.

There are three vignettes which the narrator tells: getting into a fight at school, having a child of his own and dreaming of going to heaven and fearing he’d not be let in. Thus do we have a religious connection to the ‘amen’ of the title.

1991 Joe Diffie – If the Devil Danced in Empty Pockets

‘He’d have a ball in mine!’ sings Diffie’s desperate narrator who has taken out a loan to get himself a car.

‘They say debt is a bottomless pit’ continues the complaints, which are set to a toe-tapper of a rhythm and a honky-tonk piano solo. There is a key change.

1992 Billy Ray Cyrus – Achy Breaky Heart

I don’t think I need to explain this song, in all its two-chord majesty, to you. Its run at number one for the whole of June 1992 coincided with a line-dance craze that even came to the UK, which brought the smouldering singer to prominence.

‘He might blow up and kill this man!’ advises Cyrus of telling his heart about the end of a relationship. He has no problem with his heartbreak being broadcast to his ‘fingertips’, or to his former lady’s family. He’s even willing to be punched in the mouth by her brother Cliff, who ‘never really liked me anyway’.

1993 Patty Loveless – Blame It on Your Heart

What a hook line, that goes on and on and on, written by Greek expat Kostas and the great Harlan Howard: ‘Blame it on your lying, cheating, cold deadbeating, two-timing, double dealing, mean mistreating, loving heart!’ is what Patty tells the man who ‘failed the test’ and failed to treat her right.

It’s a magnificent kiss-off where she hopes karma comes to him and ‘someone’s gonna do you like you done me’.