It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Reba McEntire, John Michael Montgomery, Michael Peterson, Brad Paisley

By Jonny Brick

1991 Reba McEntire – For My Broken Heart

This song was released in the wretched aftermath of a plane crash that killed Reba’s band. It can thus work both as a piece of memoir for the singer and as a heartbreak ballad for the listener. It is the opening song of the album of the same name, where it is introduced by a 45-second orchestral passage.

The scene is set with the opening image of boxes loaded into her ex’s car, with ‘no angry words at all’. So pained is Reba’s narrator that she forsakes a ‘lonely bed’ for ‘the couch instead’. Far from the glory of daybreak, she sings that the sun ‘is blinding me as it wakes me from the dark’, giving the song a spiritual flavour which is matched by female backing vocals.

The song’s title comes after the line ‘I guess the world didn’t stop’ at the end of the chorus, which is underlined by the backing vocals. This is in turn followed by the second verse: ‘clock’s still tickin’, life goes on’; then Reba’s narrator sets aside her ‘scattered thoughts…to stumble to the coffee pot’. It is not a clean break, however, as her ex calls her up ‘to see if I’m okay’; Clint Black was supposed to sing the man’s part but was too busy even to record it elsewhere.

1994 John Michael Montgomery – If You’ve Got Love

The benefits of love are outlined in this song: ‘you can stand your ground when the devil’s at the door’ and ‘you can move a mountain…one rock at a time’.

Love is better even than advice from ‘a real good friend’, because a touch from a lover can ‘chase the darkest blues away’.

1997 Michael Peterson – From Here to Eternity

This is a marriage proposal in the form of a country ballad, where Peterson, ‘a one-woman man’, asks his beloved ‘will you be mine?’ There is a key change for extra pathos.

1999 Brad Paisley – He Didn’t Have To Be

Inspired by songwriter Kelley Lovelace’s experience as a stepfather, this was Paisley’s first number one. ‘We went from something’s missing to a family,’ he sings, setting up the verse where he himself gets married and has a child of his own, wishing he was ‘at least half the dad’ he was.