It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Joe Diffie, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Martina McBride.

By Jonny Brick

1990 Joe Diffie – Home

Diffie’s debut single is a ballad in the neo-traditional mould, helped by a dobro chiming away in the background. As he drives, he is thinking of ‘the only treasures…long ago and far behind him’. The second verse has him remembering ‘the straight and narrow path’ that became ‘1000 winding roads’.

He sings of his rural upbringing in the chorus, recalling how home was ‘a swimming hole’, ‘a fishing pole’, ‘a back porch swing’, dad in his chair and mama hanging clothes while singing Amazing Grace, as well as ‘the smell of Sunday supper on the stove’. It is a song full of regret for leaving the place he grew up, and he admits that ‘in my mind I’m always going home’.

Note how the time signature changes subtly in the chorus, with 14-beat phrases arranged in 10 + 4 then 8 + 6, before settling back into 4/4 time.

1991 Alan Jackson – Someday

Jackson the balladeer mourns the end of a relationship, recounting the fruitless conversation that he had where he was told it was too late for him to change.

‘Sometimes, someday just never comes’ was what the lady said, perhaps prompting the listener to rescue a relationship of their own.

1993 Brooks & Dunn – She Used to Be Mine

Ronnie Dunn’s narrator, in a song he wrote, has his ‘best smile on but it’s no disguise’, as he realises how much happier his ex is ‘arm in arm with somebody new’. He acknowledges how he’d run away ‘if it weren’t for my pride’.

There is a guitar solo from Brent Mason in between the second and third iterations of the chorus, where Dunn confirms he ‘did my part to break her heart’. The lyrics are so simple and so effective; it could be a Harlan Howard or Hank Cochran lyric from the 1960s given life by Roy Orbison or Faron Young.

1999 Martina McBride – I Love You

After the success of This Kiss the previous year, which included the word ‘centrifugal’ in its chorus, this song has several majestic adverbs rarely spotted in popular song. Martina’s narrator is recklessly, electrically, kinetically, erratically and fanatically in love, while the meteorological metaphors include ‘the sun is shining’, ‘clouds never get in the way’ and, at the end of the chorus, ‘sure as the sky is blue’. In the final chorus, Martina emphasises the chord that fits under that phrase to help her land the sentiment one final time.

The pop-rock arrangement is unabashedly positive, with guitar licks, production tricks and melodies cohering to form a great radio record; Martina interjects ‘you’re so cool’ almost as an aside and, in the middle section, she hits a particularly high note to match how she feels ‘head over heels’ for her beloved. Appropriately, it was on the soundtrack to the movie Runaway Bride.