Songoftheday 3/25/22 - Mary Anne and Wanda were the best of friends all through their high school days, both members of the 4H club both active in the FFA...

 

 

"Goodbye Earl" - (Dixie) Chicks

from the album Fly (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the (Dixie) Chicks, whose follow-up album after their mainstream breakthrough, Fly, had already scored two big hits with "Ready To Run" from the movie Runaway Bride and "Cowboy Take Me Away", which became one of their signature songs. But after fans flooded radio station's phones with requests for another cut from the album, the song unexpectedly became their third single from the set. "Goodbye Earl" wasn't written by of the three women in the group, but rather songwriter Dennis Linde, was a raucous parable about domestic violence and revenge produced by Paul Worley and Blake Chancey. The song tells a clear story about two schoolmates who take different paths in life, with one setting out for a big career on the coast, while the other stays in town and marries the titular Earl. Earl ends up beating her so bad, she ends up in the hospital, and that's where her friend flies back for a plan to truly take care of things. It's totally politically incorrect, but that's the reality of a whole lot of women in this situation where the justice system fails them. NYPD Blue cop Dennis Franz reverses roles to play the bad guy in this while Jane Krakowski of Ally McBeal and soon 30 Rock plays the beaten wife, and it's truly one of the most memorable music videos in country music, and really in all of music. Even with the non-standard "chorus" (it's just the "Earl had to die" followed by the na-na-na's and catcalls), it was truly a moment in country music, where stations were originally scared to play it due to its content, but they couldn't deny it totally...

 

 While "Goodbye Earl" only was able to climb to #13 on the Country Singles chart due to radio programmers' hesitancy, the CD single sold like wildfire, and it became their highest-charting crossover hit on the Hot 100 up to that point, reaching the top-20 in May of 2000. Internationally, the single rose to #5 on the Canadian Country chart. The Chicks and the album will return to the series.

(10/10)

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"Goodbye Earl" was originally going to be recorded by the group Sons of the Desert, but got lost in the delay in recording where the Chicks snapped it up. It definitely was a better choice anyway...

Back to the Chicks in concert in their heyday...

The trio performed "Goodbye Earl" at the Grammy Awards in 2000, where Fly won Best Country Album and was up for Album of the Year...

and lastly, from their triumphant MMXVI tour in 2016...

Up tomorrow: This guy gets serenaded.