It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Mark Chesnutt, Lorrie Morgan, George Strait, Lonestar.

By Jonny Brick

1993 Mark Chesnutt – It Sure Is Monday

This song was written by Dennis Linde, famous for Goodbye Earl and Callin’ Baton Rouge. The opening chimes of mandolin and guitar both mimic the ‘alarm clock ting-a-ling-a-ringin’, as Chesnutt rouses himself for work after ‘another wild weekend’.

He draws out the word ‘Sunday’ in a manner that is impossible not to join in on. It’s also interesting to hear a wah-wah guitar sound on a country track, which is testament to how rock’n’roll had become a key part of the contemporary sonics of the genre by the 1990s.

1995 Lorrie Morgan – I Didn’t Know My Own Strength

The lyric suggests a ballad but instead the arrangement is poppy and peppy, with a guitar solo full of ear candy.

‘I’m getting back on my feet,’ Morgan sings, coming through the ‘oceans of tears’ she has cried and ‘mountains of memories’ she has had to forget. A country song of this sort can act as a crutch for the listener to lean on in hard times.

1996 George Strait – Carried Away

This is a country ballad from a man who sung dozens of them across his career. It helped that, because of his hitmaking status, Strait was given some of the most timeless ones written on Music Row.

‘Nothing matters but being with you,’ he sings here over the gentlest arrangement caressed by pedal steel; ‘nothing’s ordinary anymore’.

1997 Lonestar – Come Cryin to Me

In 1999, Amazed spent the entirety of August, peak wedding season, at the top of the charts. Two years to the month beforehand, this also hit number one.

Co-written by John Rich, who had not yet left the band, it’s a melodic appeal for a woman to pour out the hurt of her relationship to a new man; he will ‘leave the living room light burning all night…all you gotta do is knock’.