From Strait’s strongest and best Christmas album, his acoustic country version of “We Three Kings” is both beautifully arranged and reverently sung.
Sam’s Pick: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – While “We Three Kings” probably was not written with the banjo and accordion in hand, the Dirt Band does an admirable job of Americana-izing it. After falling in love with this version, I can never get used to the glacial pace of the more traditional takes of the song.
Ask them to sing “The Chair.” There isn’t a hat act out there who could measure up to Strait’s delivery of this song.
It may not have the emotional heft of George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” or Porter Wagoner’s “Green, Green Grass of Home,” but Strait’s delivery shares an important commonality with those classics. The song remains fresh and interesting even after you know the twist at the end.
More cocky than clever, the strained metaphor that gives structure to the song errs too far on the side of ridiculous.
The only reason it’s listenable at all is the fantastic Western swing arrangement and Strait’s in-on-the-joke delivery. But it’s hard to believe that was ever intended to be more than album filler.
A classic single that embraces the traditional cowboy mythos while simultaneously reinventing it.
The title invokes memories of the cowboy archetype. A relationship is coming to an end, so the cowboy saddles up and rides out of town, into the sunset.
Big difference here? He’s not leaving by his choice. It’s the lady who holds the power here, and it’s the cowboy who’s on the receiving end of a broken heart. This isn’t Waylon and Willie’s cowboy.
In listening to American Idol winner Scotty McCreery’s debut album, it becomes all too clear that either McCreery is being carefully reared by the unabashedly commercial-minded execs of 19 Entertainment… or that he simply enjoys playing follow-the-leader. The former is most likely, but almost every track on Clear as Day sounds like an emulation of the style of one of country radio’s favorite hitmakers. We get to hear Scotty McCreery play Montgomery Gentry. We get to hear Scotty McCreery play Kenny Chesney. But there are precious few moments in which it sounds like Scotty McCreery is being Scotty McCreery.
“Water Tower Town” sounds like something lifted out of the Montgomery Gentry reject pile circa 2002. “Better Than That” carries a strong thematic resemblance to Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More,” with nothing about it’s story structure feeling at all urgent or revelatory. On another note, it comes as no surprise that “Walk In the Country” was co-written by Urban, as the track clearly has Urban written all over it. (Think “Where the Blacktop Ends”) Such style-mimicking demonstrates the fact that, as a whole, Clear as Day falls into the common trap in which commercialism overshadows an album’s artistic merits.
Somewhat oddly, it’s the two singles released thus far that represent the album at its absolute worst. “I Love You This Big” scans as a grammatically-awkward piece of schmaltz with an uninspired production and a dull, auto-tuned vocal. “The Trouble with Girls” merely sounds like a cute little basket of cliches, as if the writers were more concerned with struggling to find words that rhyme than connecting with a listener on more than a surface level. At the same time, the dramatic orchestral swells in the bridge make the song sound like it’s taking itself way too seriously. It’s all too obvious that the songs’ sole purpose of existence is to serve as inoffensive distractions between radio commercials. They are so carefully calculated so as to make no negative impression that they end up making hardly any impression at all.
In most cases, lyrics rarely scratch below surface level. High school hallways serve as a common stage setting – Little surprise, given McCreery’s age of 18 – with many of the tracks playing like gender-flipped versions of Taylor Swift songs, minus the authenticity and distinct perspective. The title tracks recalls a few mundane details of an encounter with a romantic flame, only to settle for a clumsy grasp at the heart strings by killing the girl off in the end. The songs that work are those that emphasize the melodies and Scotty’s performances above the generally mediocre lyrical content. “Write My Number On My Hand” finds McCreery turning in what is possibly his most engaged performance of the set, with a wink-wink country boy charm that effectively sells the silly lyrics. But that’s not to say that all of the songs are lyrical duds. With “Dirty Dishes,” McCreery taps into the universally acceptable country radio theme of faith, and offers a take that is actually interesting. The song (written by Neil Thrasher, Michael Delaney, and Tony Martin) portrays the narrator’s mother saying “the strangest prayer ever said,” in which she thanks God for dirty dishes, noisy children, slamming doors, et cetera, and then highlighting the positive aspects of common domestic annoyances. Less effectively, however, “That Old King James” scans as an inferior “Three Wooden Crosses”-wannabe. It tracks the life journey of a King James Bible as it is passed down through different family members, but it lacks a clear message to serve as a form of listener payoff.
At its best, Clear as Day continues to offer glimpses of the substantial well of talent McCreery possesses. But at the same time, that talent sounds like it’s a long way from being fully realized. He’s not Josh Turner. He’s not George Strait. He’s not John Michael Montgomery. But when it comes to portraying who Scotty McCreery is as an artist, Clear paints a picture that is disappointingly murky.
Sometimes it’s a bit bewildering to differentiate the classic Strait singles from the forgotten ones.
What made this one so special? Well, it has a great opening line, for one thing. A more confident vocal and a Texas-centric focus certainly would’ve made it stand out back in 1984.
Today, it’s not quite distinctive enough to stand out among his other mid-eighties work, as songs with more personality would soon overshadow what he accomplishes here.
One of those great country titles that says it all upfront.
Unfortunately, it’s also one of those country titles that carries an entire song. The melody here lands just shy of memorable, and ditto to the story, which never takes its characters deeper than their first encounter at the jukebox. (Instead it does that annoying second-verse thing where it just rephrases the chorus and spells out a few obvious inferences the listener has already made.)
It’s the kind of song destined to be played at such jukeboxes, though, and the title pops out enough to ensure you’ll pick it. You just might not remember doing so later.
Written by Dickey Lee, Tommy Rocco, and Johnny Russell
It started out as a foxtrot jazz ballad written in 1921. It become a Western Swing standard thanks to Bob Wills, and then in 1984 George Strait made it into a chart-topping country hit.
George Strait’s version retains a good helping of the Bob Wills-esque Western Swing influence, giving it a light bouncy beat and a laid-back arrangement with fiddle and steel aplenty, and an interesting mid-point instrumental break. The melody is a fine fit for Strait’s vocal style. He keeps up with the quick tempo, but without compromising the melancholy mood of the lyric. The lyric of “Right Or Wrong” taps into the vein of songs that put into words what the narrator thinks and feels, but knows better than to say, which has often been the making of a great country song.
George Strait’s version doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but it’s a competent and enjoyable take that will no doubt set your toe tapping.
Written by Haven Gillespie, Arthur Sizemore, Paul Biese
The 80′s keyboard is like a cheese grater grating extra cheese onto the pizza that is “You Look So Good in Love.” To the modern ear, it imbues the song with an unintentional levity even before George gets to his third-verse recitation. Throw in the über-earnest chorus – not to mention the video – and the thing becomes just about impossible to take seriously.
And yet – screw you, who doesn’t love “You Look So Good in Love”? It’s one of those rare records you can sort of enjoy ironically and unironically at the same time, as the wimpy, dated production collides with Strait’s rich croon and one of the most singable melodies he’s ever found. Will it make anyone’s all-time list? No. Has every country fan over 25 sung the chorus to a shower head or steering wheel? “It’s easyyy to see.”
Written by Glen Ballard, Rory Michael Bourke and Kerry Chater
The weeping fiddle intro sets the tone perfectly. The fourth and final single from George Strait’s second album Strait from the Heart, also his second number-one single, found him once again tackling the classic country theme of a memory that won’t go away… and nailing it.
In some aspects, “A Fire I Can’t Put Out” is thematically similar to George’s earlier hit “Fool Hearted Memory.” In this instance, however, the story is told from a first-person perspective rather than by a third-person narrator. The lyric uses fire as a metaphor for an inextinguishable memory of a love lost. But besides the poetic storytelling, what really makes this a great lyric is the way it taps into varying emotions. While the feeling of sadness is unmistakable, the lyric also touches on an underlying appreciation for having experienced such a meaningful relationship in the first place. It even suggests that his attachment to the memory is such that the memory sustains him, and gives him strength to continue on in his life.
Besides having chosen a killer country song in the first place, George delivers the lyric in a manner that hits on all the right emotions. An overly weepy, tear-stained delivery would have obliterated the more appreciative feelings hinted at in the subtext. But George’s understative delivery is a spot-on interpretation, effectively conveying the spectrum of emotions expressed in the lyrics.
George Strait had already had some epic winners with “Fool Hearted Memory” and “Amarillo by Morning,” and “A Fire I Can’t Put Out” was another fine single from a talented young artist who would go on to become a country music legend.
Song #9: We Three Kings
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