It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from K.T. Oslin, Randy Travis, Alabama, Deana Carter

By Jonny Brick

1990 K.T. Oslin – Come Next Monday

The woman who sung the anthem for the eighties lady continues to show her independence on this chart-topper.

‘Come next Monday, I’m gonna give up on you,’ goes the refrain, as she complains about her man being ‘too much work’ and having ‘extra baggage’ over a poppy production full of synthesiser notes.

1991 Randy Travis – Forever Together

Here’s a good old country waltz from Travis, written by him and Alan Jackson, two men who brought back the traditional style. He croons his devotion to the woman who ‘was there to pick up the pieces’ despite the ‘broken promises and tears’.

1992 Alabama – I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)

Opening with the hooky chorus sung a cappella by the band in harmony, the pacy country-rock arrangement sets the verse to anodyne guitars. Randy Owen’s narrator sings about how his car ‘has nothing to prove’ and how he ‘better pick up my pace’, with a nice image of him ‘shaking hands with the clock’.

The middle section begins with a falsetto line (‘I hear a voice’) that serves to push him on because there’s ‘no room for someone in second place’. We never find out why the narrator is in such a hurry, which is apt because as per the chorus he does not know the reason.

1996 Deana Carter – Strawberry Wine

This modern standard, written by Matraca Berg, recalls the narrator’s teenage summer romance. She recalls the ‘bittersweet’ nature of a romance which was presided over by a ‘hot July moon’, when she and her friend ‘drifted away like the leaves in the fall’.

In the middle section, Carter asks if she has been mourning ‘him or the loss of my innocence’, a timeless sentiment which prompts modern songwriters to keep referencing the image of the song’s title.