It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Neal McCoy, Tracy Lawrence, Reba & Brooks & Dunn

By Jonny Brick

1994 Neal McCoy – Wink

Tom Shapiro and Bob DiPiero wrote this three-chord tune, which McCoy sells well, especially the emphatic ‘slam-bam’ that starts each chorus.

‘Don’t need to psychoanalyse or have a stiff drink,’ he sings, distilling the essence of love in a blink of a lady’s eye.

1995 Tracy Lawrence – Texas Tornado

Here’s a Bobby Braddock copyright that continues Lawrence’s impressive streak of top ten hits which lasted from 1991 to 1997.

Our narrator collects his beloved from the airport but, thanks to the mellow arrangement, we can tell he is a ‘fool…tumbleweed in a wild west Texas wind’. He is doomed to be a fling rather than the real thing. When he sings of being played like a piano, a piano riff cuts through the mix, while elegant strings undercut his melancholy. There is also an unexpected key change in the middle of the chorus.

1996 Tracy Lawrence – Time Marches On

And a year later Lawrence was at number one again with another song written by Bobby Braddock.

Across three verses, we get the lives of an entire family, soundtracked by Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, two artists whose songs are namechecked as Lawrence runs through the years and reminds us that ‘everything changes’. A girl has become ‘a sexy grandma’ by the third verse, while a mother is ‘out of touch with reality’, possibly suffering from dementia.

1998 Reba & Brooks & Dunn – If You See Him/ If You See Her

To promote their co-headline tour, both Reba and Brooks & Dunn released new albums on the same day which each contained this power ballad, complete with a crunching guitar solo.

‘I still want her,’ croons Dunn, while Reba answers with ‘I still need him so’. Though she misses him, he tells someone not to pass on this message, emphasising the heartbreak and the need to move on.