Songoftheday 9/30/21 -I heard he was gonna marry some girl from Denver, then my sister came over had the Sunday paper with her...

 

 

"I'll Think Of A Reason Later" - Lee Ann Womack

from the album Some Things I Know (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from country singer Lee Ann Womack, who grew up in the East Texan city of Jacksonville, the daughter of a radio DJ who helped shape her love for music at a young age. Nevertheless, Womack didn't start her music career until she was in her thirties, signing with the Decca imprint of MCA Records, where she had been working behind the scenes. Lee Ann's self-titled debut album was released in 1997, with the first single "Never Again, Again" hitting a modest #23 on the Country Songs chart in Billboard magazine, but the retail single sold well enough that it "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 list at #124. That set-up paid off as her next two single from her debut, "The Fool" and "You Got To Talk To Me", both raced to #2 on the Country Songs chart. The pair of songs showed how adept Lee Ann is with both traditional country and more crossover-friendly material. The album came in at #109 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, and #9 on the Country Albums list, and eventually sold over a million copies.

 

In 1998, Womack returned with her sophomore effort Some Things I Know. The lead single from the project, the beautiful ballad "A Little Past Little Rock", went to #2 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, but was declining on the radio when the weekly music industry trade bible changed their rules on the "pop" Hot 100 chart to allow non-retail "singles" to place on the list from radio airplay alone. Therefore it just missed the top-40 in December of 1998. But that wouldn't be an issue with her follow-up radio offering, "I'll Think Of A Reason Later". Written by Nashville vets Tony Martin and Tim Nichols, and produced by Mark Wright, the uptempo song has Lee Ann makin comical protestations on her ex's new fiance. It's fun to have a topic usually handles with either anger or sorrow treated with the light touch of petty vindictiveness, as she ponders on the angelic nature of the new woman as well as her faults, which she promises to provide at another time (like the real killer for OJ Simpson)...

"I'll Think Of A Reason Later" became Lee Ann's first top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in May of 1999. The song spent a month (four weeks) in the runner-up spot on their Country Singles chart. Internationally, the single went all the way to the top of the Canadian Country list. The Some Things I Know album, released in September of 1998, went to #136 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #20 on the Country Albums genre list, going on to sell a half million copies. 

The third release from Some Things I Know was another uptempo song, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't", which has her breaking up with a beau. It went to #12 on the Country Singles chart (and #11 on the Canadian Country list), and made the Hot 100 at #72. That was followed by "Don't Tell Me", a gentler ballad that puts her on the other side of that situation. The song peaked at #58 on the Country Singles chart in America, and #63 on the Canadian counterpart. Lee Ann will return to this series. 

(8/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Lee Ann performing the song live in concert in London in 2015...

Up tomorrow: Big boyband has expectations.