It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Tim McGraw.

By Jonny Brick

1991 Travis Tritt – Anymore

Tritt co-wrote this acoustic ballad, a torch song on which he sings of wanting to express his feelings, to ‘take the chance or let it pass by’. He seeks to rescue a relationship which he is ‘tired of pretending’ he shouldn’t pursue.

He sings, with some panache, of ‘the hurt inside’ and how his ‘resistance ain’t that strong’, in a manner that will appeal to many listeners. It’s a spin on Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, but with less bombast.

1994 Alan Jackson – Livin’ on Love

Self-written by Jackson, this is a song that dwells on the nature of romance. Kicking off with a fiddle solo in a major key, the lyric describes a young married couple who represent how ‘without somebody nothing ain’t worth a dime’. The strong pattern of ‘time/dime/rhyme’ anchors the song with a singalong chorus.

The final verse throws forward to the end of their life, with the pair ‘side by side in that front porch swing’, his eyesight going and her body weak.

1996 Clint Black – Like the Rain

Black co-wrote this power ballad, which is bookended with the sound of rainfall. The lyric, where the narrator admits to ‘falling for you now just like the rain’, is set to a folky melody that opens up in the chorus. A piano fills in the spaces between each verse, while the guitar chimes away for the song’s coda.

The lyrics run with the pluvial theme: ‘every thundercloud that came’, ‘on the darkest day there’s always light’, ‘thunder striking me’, ‘the cloud…as bright as lightning’ and ‘the eye of the storms that will be calling’. In the middle section, Black pitches the melody up to give the song a new intensity on the line ‘I know that we’ll find better ways’.

In a line which unites the song’s two themes of love and weather, he sings that ‘when the flood is gone, we still remain’.

1997 Tim McGraw – Everywhere

Once upon a time, McGraw’s narrator accepted that the girl he wanted to be with did not want to leave the town they grew up in. Whenever he does return home, ‘the conversation always turns to you’.

He recounts the many states and cities which remind him of her, painting images of picking peaches in Georgia, walking barefoot on California beaches and ‘waiting out a blizzard’ in Albuquerque. ‘In my heart I’ll always see you everywhere,’ he sighs.