Every #1 Country Single of the Eighties: George Strait, “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You”

“It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You”

George Strait

Written by Dean Dillon and Royce Porter

Radio & Records

#1 (1 week)

November 7, 1986

Billboard

#1 (1 week)

December 6, 1986

Dean Dillon’s idiosyncratic songwriting matched so perfectly with George Strait’s sophisticated delivery that it’s impossible to imagine hits like “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You” being sung by anyone else.

Strait was able to deliver a potentially awkward lyric so that it rolled right off of his tongue, while heightening the emotion of the lyric through his choices in phrasing. I especially love the wry deliver of “it ain’t suave or debonair,” where he hits a slightly higher note on the final word that emphasizes the contradiction here.  He’s singing about coolness from a very uncool perspective, and he does it in a way that shows familiarity with being cool, suggesting that he was quite suave or debonair before he got his heart trampled on.

It’s really hard to fault anything about this record.  That would be more crazy than cool, don’t you think?

‘It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You” gets an A.

Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties

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4 Comments

  1. This particular song is actually easy to imagine being sung by someone else because Kenny Chesney recorded a cover of it in 2007 that give the lyrics a more melancholy feel.

  2. …defining bro-country? you won’t find “suave” and “debonair” in those lyrics.

    the high waist jeans look that the king is sporting on that smaller picture above, didn’t really catch on, did it? i wonder why.

  3. First Randy Travis talked about “exhuming” things. Now George Strait uses “suave” and “debonair?”

    What is going on lyrically with this high-toned new traditionalists?

    Keep it down to earth for the earthy, boys!

    I love the sound and feel of this song. George Strait took off for me as a superstar with his previous number one single and this one.

    Pure country gold from the “#7” album.

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