Reba McEntire, “Strange”
The contrast between “For My Broken Heart”, a #1 single for Reba McEntire in 1991, and “Strange,” her new single, speaks volumes on how the portrayal of women has changed in country music over the past two decades.
When “For My Broken Heart” peaked, Reba McEntire was at the height of her amazingly long run as the genre’s most successful female artist, but she was also the last of the truly great heartbreak queens. When she goes to bed with grief over being left, she wakes up the next morning and notes, “The sun is blinding me as it wakes me from the dark. I guess the world didn’t stop for my broken heart.”
Eighteen years later, she’s going to bed with a heartache again, and the sun is waking her up in the morning once more. But “strange,” she now sings, “talk about luck! I woke up and the sun was shining. I oughta be in bed with my head in the pillow crying over us, but i ain’t.”