Every #1 Country Single of the Eighties: John Schneider, “Country Girls”

“Country Girls”

John Schneider

Written by Troy Seals and Eddie Setzer

Billboard

#1 (1 week)

April 6, 1985

John Schneider likes country girls and he’s glad God made them.

He doesn’t wish they could all be country girls, like the Beach Boys wished they could all be California girls, but he’ll take a gal in Mobile, Alabama over those New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles ladies.

I wonder if Jimmy Bowen ever expected this one to be a single, though, because the tempo is a few beats too slow.  I’m surprised it did so well 0n the radio.  It’s not quite dreary, but it flirts with that.

Anyway, there are so many of these songs that “Country Girls” doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from, at least within its own era.  There’s not cutoff jeans and pretty bare feet nonsense here.  He’s singing about women that he loves and respects.

I just don’t think they found the right groove this time around.  This would’ve been way better as a midtempo track.

“Country Girls” gets a B-

Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties

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2 Comments

  1. Say what you want about tempo, but this was a dance floor filler when it came out. Just slow enough for a slow dance cuddle, but you’d shuffle those feet around the floor.

  2. I hear a song sighing from the weight of admiration, more patient wonder than weariness.

    What a great insight from Heath that this song was a dance floor filler in 1985.

    As a mid-western eleven year old, I had yet to stumble my way onto a country dance floor.

    As a suburbanite I also wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about girls, much less country girls.

    What I was, however, was confused about the line about “Tupelo honey.” I heard it as “two pulls of honey.”

    I guess I thought country girls were beekeepers.

    This made some sort of vague sense to me as I was a fan of Jimmie Rodgers “Honeycomb” and Elvis’ ” I Got Stung.”

    Maybe a geography lesson of the south would have served me well or, even better, an older brother explaining the birds and the bees to me.

    Geographical ignorance, and adolescent naivete about the honey-like sweetness of girls aside, I love this song and John Schneider’s emergence as a legitimate country star.

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