“Tell Her”
Lonestar
Written by Kwesi B and Craig Wiseman
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
February 2, 2001
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
February 3 -10, 2001
“Tell Her” is so refreshing lyrically.
It’s a frank and honest conversation between friends, with one refusing to indulge the other’s anger and making sure he thinks through the consequences of his decisions.
Which is totally Richie McDonald’s wheelhouse as a vocalist. He sounds like a sympathetic friend who is trying to stop his friend from making a mistake that he just might have made himself back in the day.
There are some nice country instrumentation flourishes too, with the subtle steel guitar work doing some sneaky heavy lifting in the background. It’s so close to being a perfect record.
But they forgot the melody! This song screams out for a power pop chorus that never arrives, which makes it all feel a little incomplete. This one was better in my memory, honestly, because I would’ve sworn that there was more of a payoff here than there actually is.
I’m disappointed.
“Tell Her” gets a B.
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I think there might be a reason you expected better of this one. The only available cut I can find is the one you have attached….the album cut. Radio must have agreed with you that this sounded dreary and dull because they played a different version with a fiddle-laced arrangement (at least I think it was fiddle….I haven’t heard it in more than a decade). I’ll write my review later tonight but I’ll have two different scores for the radio version versus the album cut which is the only version I can find. If anybody has a link to the radio version of “Tell Her”, I’d be thrilled if you could point me in its direction.
Here ya go!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGY3V8Cx8mY
Thanks much. Not sure why my previous searches for this version have gone unfulfilled. Doesn’t seem like it should have been that complicated for me. Beats the album version by a mile.
I agree, the radio mix of this song was infinitely better and, in my opinion, fixes almost all of the issues you had with the seeming lack of payoff. The album version sounds like a bad Dan + Shay song to my ears, but the radio mix has a lot more muscle — it’s so vastly different I went out of my way to acknowledge this when I reviewed the song. I think it’s interesting that you brought up the melody, as I found the melody of “What About Now” far weaker than this song’s.
My sister had their Greatest Hits on constant loop, and it bugged me that even there, they just put the album version on and not the radio version (despite doing the radio version of “No News” and a remix of “I’m Already There”). For a long time, I couldn’t find any proof the radio mix even existed, as this song got literally no recurrent play in my area (much like I said previously about most of the early 2001 chart toppers). For a long time I was convinced I was undergoing a Mandela effect until the radio version finally got posted online.
I also find this song fascinating because I can’t find any info on the “Kwesi B.” who is one of the co-writers here. He has two other credits (and his real name) on ASCAP, one of which is a soundtrack cut by Tony! Toni! Toné!, and the other of which does not appear to have been recorded by anyone. I wonder how he ended up with his name on a #1 country song?
I have the Greatest Hits CD as well and always skip this one out of frustration that they put the lifeless album version on it rather than the radio cut. It’s not often I get to say this, but thank goodness that the sage founts of wisdom that are country radio programmers prevailed on this one.
Having sorted out the substantial differences between the comatose album version and the pluckier radio version, this is a quiet but solid track that leans into what I consider a Richie McDonald strength….the sad ballad. I was a little surprised that I was the only one that really liked “Smile” because I thought he approached that song with the same vocal approach, conveying a lingering sorrow that he’s gritted his teeth and made peace with. The radio mix unequivocally sells this better, but I wouldn’t say it rises to the level of greatness for me.
Much as I love Ronnie Milsap, this is a much more interesting record than Ronnie’s similarly titled “Show Her”, which basically turns Ronnie into Dr. Phil spouting off cliched relationship advice. Still, the writing on “Tell Her” is a bit slight for a #1. Lonestar was able to get it there because of momentum at this stage of their career, but I don’t think too many others in the business could have gotten it there in 2001 no matter how great the vocal performance.
Radio Mix Grade: B
Album Cut Grade: C
It’s funny, I have no recollection of the radio version but had heard the album version plenty and found the record alright, but a little dull. Not only does the fiddle on the radio version spice up the song a lot more, it seems to bring out the fact that this song is in an interesting key, almost sounds like it’s in minor. Definitely think the radio version is superior and changes my opinion of the song some.
The radio edit is composed in E minor, with a modulation to F-sharp minor at the last chorus. It’s very clever chord-wise, with the first half of each chorus using C, D, and G chords to suggest a resolution to the relative major key of G (E minor and G major use the same key signature) before dropping back to an E minor chord at the end of the chorus. “Take It Easy” by the Eagles also does this trick of musically setting up a G major chord but playing an E minor one instead.
I myself remember hearing the radio version of “Tell Her” for the first time on the Weekly Country Music Countdown show while in the car with my dad at night after we were leaving Best Buy. I remember thinking that fiddle and steel guitar intro was pretty unique and fancy for a country song and the melody was pretty neat. I remember hearing it again the following week on the same countdown show, and of course it’s the version I always heard on our stations from that point on. And like Bobby and MarkMinnesota, I had not heard it again for the longest time ever since radio quit playing it after its chart run was done. When I picked up the Lonely Grill album many years later, I immediately noticed it sounded different than I remembered it, noticeably slower and missing that unique intro, but it was the only version available, so I kind of got used to it. It wasn’t until someone uploaded their 2000 CMA performance of “Tell Her” on Youtube a while back that I finally got to hear what the radio version sounded like again. It’s just crazy how that version of the song just vanished into thin air for the longest time, especially for a band that was as popular as Lonestar was during the late 90s and early 2000s.
While I agree with others that the radio version gives the song more needed muscle, energy, and tempo, I kind of have a liking for both versions for different reasons, since I had also gotten used to hearing the album version on my playlists for many years. For the album version, I like the sort of dark, futuristic vibe of the steel guitar in the intro. Actually, Paul Franklin’s classy as always steel guitar playing throughout the album version alone makes it still worthwhile to my ears, especially during the choruses. I also love the fiddle solo in the instrumental break. Richie McDonald also seems to lean more into the sadness and regret in the narrator’s mistake of letting his last significant other go. The radio version of “Tell Her” though, seems to offer more hope for the narrator’s buddy in that it’s not too late for him make things right with the brighter arrangement, higher key, and slightly faster tempo. I still absolutely love the stylish intro and main melody featuring some fancy fiddle and steel being played together, along with the Spanish flavored guitar. Also like how the drums have more of a punch. The verses are overall a lot more nicely beefed up with more interesting instrumentation going on throughout. I also like how some of the lines and notes in the verses are sung differently, like when Richie stretches out the word “loud” longer in the second verse, giving it more syllables and notes. The instrumental break, final chorus and ending are also much more climactic featuring a dramatic arrangement and Richie belting some of his signature high notes. While he’s still showing regret from his past mistake, he also making darn well sure to tell his friend to go get her back NOW before it’s too late, in this version.
I agree with Kevin that it’s a great song lyrically and it’s especially refreshing to hear this kind of mature, thoughtful theme in a country song today in a world where angry, immature breakup songs seem to be thriving more in mainstream country. And for some reason, I always liked the “I’m just curious, were you furious” rhyme in the first verse, which always stood out to me. It’s overall another song I really enjoy from Lonestar’s Dan Huff years.
Also when revisiting the radio version of “Tell Her,” I did some more digging on Youtube and came across this cool footage of Lonestar performing it at the Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve show in 2001. Sound quality is not the best, but it’s still a pretty cool find nonetheless and a nice brief trip back in time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0TVUNKe5g
And speaking of radio versions of Lonestar hits that are hard to find, I’ve always much preferred the radio version of “Everything’s Changed” released in 1998 after John Rich left, which featured a more muscular sound in the drums and bass, Richie’s vocals turned up more, and the fiddle and steel guitar being louder throughout (at least to my ears). The album version on Crazy Nights sounds a bit wimpier in comparison, with the drum sound being more typical of Don Cook’s production style from the mid 90s, which was sounding more dated by 1998. If you listen to the version featured on the official music video on YouTube, and then go back and listen to the Crazy Nights version, you should notice the difference.
I didn’t know there was a re-recording of “Everything’s Changed”. Every time I heard it on the radio, it sounded exactly like it does on the album.
I was irritated when so many hits collections left off revamped versions of the hits.
Even Pam Tillis wasn’t spared. The radio versions of “Mi Vida Loca” and “In Between Dances” featured re-recorded vocals. You can hear those versions in the music videos but they’ve never been released commercially, even on her hits collections.
I had been actually been unaware that the version of Pam’s “In Between Dances” on the radio was a remix until I saw the music video on Youtube many years later and noticed it sounded different than it did on Sweetheart’s Dance. There are also “country mix” versions of Martina McBride’s “Valentine” and Trisha Yearwood’s “How Do I Live” that I love which were always played on our stations, but were never made available to purchase or even stream today.
Yeah, “Everything’s Changed” was probably a case in which not all stations played the new radio mix, with some still playing the original album version. I remember when “Wild Horses” by Garth Brooks was finally released as a single in late 2000, the station in Lancaster, Pennsylvania still played the original 1990 No Fences version with the younger Garth singing and fadeout in the end instead of the new 2000 radio mix featuring new vocals from Garth and the cold ending. The differences between the two versions of “Everything’s Changed” are definitely more subtle, but I can definitely hear them, especially in the sound of the drums. I don’t think Richie even redid the vocals, but they have a little more reverb in the radio version and sound louder and more intense to me. The radio version is the one I heard the first time while my parents and I were vacationing in California, and the one our stations played back home in Virginia. I’ll leave these for others to check out:
Radio Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noR_rRudcU4
Album Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9_xiNgM9Q
Good but forgettable song. B-