Robbed hit of the week 8/2/21 - George Strait's "We Really Shouldn't Be Doing This"...

 

 

"We Really Shouldn't Be Doing This" - George Strait

from the album One Step At A Time (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44

 

This weeks "robbed hit" comes from one of the biggest stars ever to hit the Nashville country music scene, George Strait. Strait, from a small city in southern Texas, he worked on his father's ranch before marrying at 19 and enlisting in the Army. Eventually earning a college degree in Texas in Agriculture, and almost went that route after a few of his independently-released songs stiffed before finally getting signed to the MCA label in 1981. Strait's debut single, "Unwound", went to #6 on Billboard magazine's Country Songs chart. The song came from his first album, Strait Country, which went to #26 on the Country Albums sales tally. 

The following year, George returned with his sophomore effort Strait From The Heart. The lead single, "Fool Hearted Memory", landed the singer his first #1 on Billboard's Country Songs chart. That exposure set Strait up for his big breakthrough album, Right Or Wrong. The record topped the Country Albums chart, and shows up on the Billboard 200 sales list at #163, and spun off three #1 country hits in 1984 including "You Look So Good In Love". The record started an eight-album streak of #1's on the Country Albums chart in the 1980s. 1987's "All My Ex's Live In Texas", from his Ocean Front Property album, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, losing out to fellow traditionalist Randy Travis for his Always & Forever album. The last set of that streak, 1990's Livin' It Up, cracked the top-40 on the Billboard 200 list at #35. 

Strait continued his success into the 1990's, starring in his own movie Pure Country in 1992. The accompanying soundtrack went all the way to #6 on the Billboard 200, returned him to #1 on the Country Albums list, and went on to sell over six million copies. His next album after that, Easy Come, Easy Go, saw its title track, released as a single, give George his first placing on the all-genre Hot 100 pop chart in 1993. His seventeenth studio set, Carrying Your Love With Me, released in 1997, finally got the singer his first #1 on the Billboard 200. Lead single "One Step At A Time" again made the Hot 100 list at #59 at tied his best at five weeks at #1 on country radio, while "Carrying Your Love With Me", which spent a month at #1 on the Country Songs list, earned George his second Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal, which Vince Gill took home for "Pretty Little Adrianna". The Carrying Your Love With Me album was also up for Best Country Album, but Johnny Cash's Unchained took the prize.

So by 1998, Strait had amassed thirty-three #1 hits on Billboard's Country Songs chart. That year, he released his eighteenth studio effort One Step At A Time. The first single "I Just Want To Dance With You" spent three weeks on top of that list, and with a retail single popped on to the pop Hot 100 at #61. That was followed by "True", which took four weeks at #2 at country radio. The third try from the disc, however, had the benefit of Billboard changing its rules to allow album cuts to place on the Hot 100. "We Really Shouldn't Be Doing This", written by Jim Lauderdale and produced by Tony Brown, has George with a little swagger as he tells a woman that they're both attached and they must nip any romantic inclinations in the bud. It's playful and squeaky clean enough to pass any holy roller test, though, and as opposed to the countless country records that involve infidelity, this one definitely has the feel that it ain't going nowhere. But his rapid-fire delivery sets this apart from his many other hits...

Though "We Really Shouldn't Be Doing This" rose to #4 on the Country Singles chart, the song stopped just short of the Hot 100 top-40 in December of 1998. Internationally, the single got to #2 on the Canadian Country list. The One Step At A Time album, released in April of 1998, peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200, and #1 on the Country Albums tally, going on to sell over two million copies. Another album cut, "You Haven't Left Me Yet", wasn't fully promoted to radio, yet still spent fifteen weeks on the Country Songs chart topping out at #59. But by his next release, George will crack the top-40.

(7/10)

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Here's the album version of the song...

next up, in concert at one of his arena gigs...

and lastly live in Las Vegas in 2017...