“You’ve Never Been This Far Before”
Conway Twitty
Written by Becki Bluefield and Jim Owen
Billboard
#1 (3 weeks)
September 8 – September 22, 1973
This is the lustiest love song in country music history.
The lust part usually gets all of the attention, and that limited focus does the record a disservice because it underrates the emotional complexity of what Twitty pulls off here as a singer and a songwriter.
”I don’t know what I’m saying as my trembling fingers touch forbidden places” is the line that got this record banned on some radio stations, largely because it was misinterpreted as him making moves on a young virgin, overlooking that he later sings, “I don’t know and I don’t care what made you tell him you don’t love him anymore.”
This is a record about taking a huge risk and blowing up your lives to take a chance at enduring love that you know that you can’t find with your current partner. This man is going to lose everything, but he loves this woman so much that his focus never wavers from how she’s feeling at every moment.
Yes, his nervousness and heartbeat ramp up as they consummate this forbidden love. Yes, you can practically feel the lovemaking sweat dripping off of the record.
But the real chance they’re taking isn’t about tonight. It’s about tomorrow, when the world will hate them for what they’ve done, but their love will power them through the consequences that await them when they leave the sanctuary of the bedroom that they now share.
It’s a cheating record of a different kind, when you have to choose between cheating on the one you’re with and cheating yourself from the true love that awaits you if you’re brave enough to take the leap.
“You’ve Never Been This Far Before” gets an A.
Every No. 1 Single of the Seventies
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