Preview Tanya Tucker’s ‘My Turn’

As reported in today’s news roundup at The 9513, Saguaro Road Records has made sample clips available of several songs from Tanya Tucker’s forthcoming covers album, My Turn, which will be released on June 30th.  Be sure to visit the Saguaro Road blog and listen to the clips and let us know which ones you like best.

Recommendation: Songs about “the other woman”

While getting a card for my mom’s birthday at Wal-Mart, I decided to swing through the CD section. While browsing the CDs, I found Tanya Tucker’s 20 Greatest Hits, so since I know none of her songs, I picked up the set for 8 bucks. So far, my favorite track is “Soon”, the title track of one of her 90′s albums, and a #2 hit on the country charts. It’s a song about “the other woman”, the mistress of a cheater. So here are my three favorite songs about her, “the other woman.” (shortened to “TOW”)

“Soon” by Tanya Tucker

This song portrays the beginning, TOW has a summer fling with a taken man, and it goes too far. All he does is tell her that he’ll be with her soon, leave his other girl soon, but eventually it gets to this:

He’ll say soon to her forever
So she makes her new years resolution
Soon she won’t call him anymore
Soon, when he shows up at her door and
Asks her when can I be with you again
It’ll be her turn to say
Soon.

She wants to break free from him, and she will, soon. Tanya really gives this song the emotional thrust it needs, and it never gets bombastic like it could. It’s a little resigned and regretful, as it should be.

“Stay” by Sugarland

Yeah, you all know this song, but it had to be mentioned. Here TOW goes through an epiphany:

I can’t take it any longer but my will is getting stronger
And I think I know just what I have to do
I can’t waste another minute after all that I’ve put in it
I’ve given you my best, why does she get the best of you?
So next time you find you wanna leave her bed for mine,
Why don’t you stay?

This song takes that moment of epiphany and illustrates it perfectly, capturing all the emotion and motivation that goes into it. It’s a modern masterpiece, and hands down one of the best songs on radio recently (If only they would release “Very Last Country Song” as a single…). TOW is portrayed not as a villain, but as a person with their own feelings and self worth who has been deluded and betrayed.

“She Gets What I Deserve” by SHeDAISY

Finally in this song, TOW regrets what she’s done to the wife of the man she was with. She knows everything about the wife, having seen her from a distance. She sees the hurt the wife, and wishes it was all different:

I can’t whitewash my excuses,
I can’t cover up the stain,
I can’t give back what I’ve taken,
I should be the one to bear the pain.
I just pray that God forgives me
For what I’ve done to her
She gets what I deserve…

This song conveys the massive amount of regret necessary for this kind of song, and Kristyn Osborne really proves her writing chops. SHeDAISY is often mocked and teased by country fans, but this song is a great country song that really proves their worth.

So what are your favorite songs about “the other woman”?

Something with a twist to it

Billy Yates

Some of the most memorable country songs are the ones which surprise you, the story song with a twist in the tale, or the song which suddenly goes in a direction you really weren’t expecting. Sometimes the effect is desigend to make you laugh; sometimes it may bring you to tears; there are some songs which simply stop you in your tracks in shock the first time you hear them.

That happened to me the first time I heard the Billy Yates/Monty Criswell song ‘Flowers’, on Yates’ self-titled first album in 1997 (also notable for the first version of the song ‘Choices’, subsequently recorded by George Jones). ‘Flowers’ has also been covered by former Nashville Star winner Chris Young and (with a few lyrical changes) by Australian Adam Harvey, yet even knowing the twist to come, it has never lost its force for me. One of the reasons this song is so effective is that it breaks a lot of the conventions of country songwriting. Instead of the usual verse-chorus pattern, we have a series of hookless verses with the chorus sung through twice at the very end. The title does not appear until the very last word of the song.

Rather than spell out the story here, I suggest you listen to the song yourself if you haven’t heard it before (and try to avoid looking at the tags).

A surefire way to make the listener cry is to not reveal until late in the song that the subject has died. For instance, Rebecca Lynn Howard and Trisha Yearwood both recorded ‘Melancholy Blue’, written by Harlan Howard and Tom Douglas; in this song the protagonist is wandering restlessly unable to get over someone, but it is presumed that he has just left her until the last verse, when she visits his grave. The vocal is imbued with sadness before that, but the impact on the listener is doubled by being delayed.

Even in a song whose subject is as well known as ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ (written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman) it is only halfway through that it is truly obvious that the reason the protagonist has stopped loving the woman who has left is that he has finally proved himself right when “he said ‘I’ll love you til I die’”. Similarly, although there must always be a sense of looming doom in a Vietnam-era story featuring a soldier, it is only at the end of Bruce Robison’s ‘Traveling Soldier’ (most famously recorded by the Dixie Chicks) that the young man’s death is announced. It is perhaps almost as much of a shock to the listener as to his unfortunate sweetheart.