It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Ricky Van Shelton, Clay Walker, Brooks & Dunn, Trisha Yearwood

By Jonny Brick

1991 Ricky Van Shelton – Keep It Between the Lines

Country music often throws up songs which bring together scenes from across a life, like this family-based weepie. It is set to a central image of driving on this ‘long, narrow road’ called life where you ought to ‘keep your hands on the wheel’ and ‘take your time’. There’s an element of spirituality too in the line ‘believe in the things that are real’.

There’s a three-act structure to the verses: a father teaching his son, the narrator, to drive; the son helping his own son colour in the pages of his book; and the widowed son praying to God, as well as the spirit of his own father, for guidance. Each verse ends with the comfort of the father saying, ‘I’m right here beside you and you’re gonna do fine’.

The song paints warm pictures with warm words, with the opening image of dad ‘smiling so proud’, the son hugging his own son ‘so tightly’ and the voice of God/his own father answering him in a voice ‘so gentle and low’.

1993 Clay Walker – What’s It To You

Walker’s first number one is a toe-tapper that defines love as ‘the rhythm of two hearts beating’. His vocal delivery is pleasant and jubilant, and the chorus is supremely melodic and catchy: ‘I know what love is, what’s it to you?’ he asks.

There is a key change for the final chorus.

1994 Brooks & Dunn – She’s Not the Cheatin’ Kind

The poor lady Ronnie Dunn sings about has been cheated on and wants to dance and drink her sorrows away: ‘he’s still lyin’, she’s through cryin’.

The guitar solo briefly overlays one track over another to provide some ear candy that might also sound like the lady crying.

1996 Trisha Yearwood – Believe Me Baby (I Lied)

Yearwood’s narrator is hugely vulnerable here as she remembers how her ‘wounded pride’ acted to push her love away. The chorus is soaked in harmonies and the arrangement is bright and breezy, all the better to contrast with the lyric.

The middle section contains a spacious few bars of ‘oohs’ before the guitar solo