Every #1 Country Single of the Eighties: Ronnie Milsap, “Show Her”

“Show Her”

Ronnie Milsap

Written by Mike Reid

Radio & Records

#1 (1 week)

January 20, 1984

Billboard

#1 (1 week)

February 4, 1984

Mike Reid and Ronnie Milsap had many fruitful collaborations, with Reid earning his first Grammy Award for writing Milsap’s top five hit “Stranger in My House,” and Reid later having his first big chart hit as an artist duetting with Milsap.

“Show Her” has all of the elements you’d expect from one of their pairings. It’s a sensitive piano ballad that Milsap sings with energy and conviction.

The sum is a bit less than the individual parts this time around.  Milsap has a tendency to oversing to compensate for when the material is slight, and Reid doesn’t give him too much to work with here.

The sentiment is fine, but the execution makes for a surprisingly dull record, considering the caliber of talent involved.

Perhaps I’m still salty about “Stranger in My House” not being a No. 1 record, but this one doesn’t do it for me.

“Show Her” gets a C. 

Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties

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3 Comments

  1. I had to listen again because I wasn’t familiar with the title. This is a very forgettable song that is overshadowed by much better and more memorable songs. Milsap had a lot of hits, but only a handful really stand the test of time. “There’s No Gettin’ Over Me”, “Lost In the Fifties”, and the already-mentioned “Stranger In My House” still sound good today, but he did release a lot of radio filler.

    It’s interesting how some of the songs that didn’t go to #1 are still the artists’ signature song. “Fancy” only went to #8; “Amarilllo by Morning”, “Independence Day”, and lots of other career songs didn’t make it to #1. But if you look at streaming numbers and video views, they’re still among those singers’ most popular songs. Radio play isn’t always a tell of a song’s impact or success, even in the days when radio was the lynchpin of consumer consumption.

  2. @KJC:

    Re. “Show Her”: I agree, it’s not necessarily a top notch collaboration between Milsap and Reid, though I’ve heard far worse since then from others.

    Re. “Stranger In My House”: I absolutely totally agree with you on that one, for sure, it should have been bigger than it was, not only on the country chart, but also on the overall Hot 100 (#23).

  3. This is just the saccharine sticky sweet spot country ballad singers struggle to avoid as they slow down.

    Its’s hard to hate this performance because of the messaging, but its’s hard to like because it is so sonically limp and lame. I frequently used those same adjectives to describe Doug Stone ballads in the ’90s.

    I will date myself, however, and say Andy Williams would sound great singing this bland love song.

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