Songoftheday 8/15/21 - He left me cryin' late one Sunday night outside of Boulder, he said he had to find himself out on the road...

 

 

"Stand Beside Me" - Jo Dee Messina

from the album I'm Alright (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from Jo Dee Messina, who came to Nashville from the decidedly non-Southern state of Massachusetts to start a country music career. After signing with Curb Records, Messina released her self-titled debut album in 1996, which spun off two top ten country radio hits including "Heads Carolina, Tails California", which spent a week at #2 and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 in Billboard magazine at #111. Two years later, Jo Dee returned with her sophomore effort I'm Alright. Both the lead single "Bye Bye" and follow-up "I'm Alright" went all the way to #1 on the Country Radio chart, while the single, which included both hits, just missed the Hot 100 top-40 at #43. For the third song from the set promoted to radio, Jo Dee offered "Stand Beside Me", a midtempo ballad written by Stephen Allen Davis, who wrote soul legend Percy Sledge's top-20 pop hit from 1968 "Take Time To Know Her". In this song, Jo Dee sets herself free from heartbreak, moves from Colorado to Tennessee to start a new life, and what happens is that the ex suddenly shows up wanting to reunite, but she (thankfully) isn't having it. She is drawn to him but knows that she needs a real partner, one that will be steadfast and true to her. I definitely feel her pain. This is why country music today is so damn boring, discarding women's voices in place of homoerotic xenophobic branding to sell a lifestyle and numerous products. Song like this tell stories, imperfect stories, and ones people can relate to...

"Stand Beside Me" became Jo Dee's third consecutive #1 country radio hit for three weeks, and since Billboard changed its rules to allow album cuts to place on the Hot 100, made it into the Top-40 for her first time in February of 1999. Internationally, the song also topped the Canadian Singles chart. The I'm Alright album, released in March of 1998, went to #61 on the Billboard 200, and #5 on the Country Albums genre list, going on to sell over two million copies. This won't be the last time on the series for Jo Dee or the album.

(10/10)

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Messina included an acoustic live take of "Stand Beside Me" on her 2010 EP Unmistakable: Love, which went to #21 on Billboard's Country Albums chart and #106 on the Billboard 200...

Up tomorrow: An unwashed rocker heads for the skies.