Songoftheday 10/24/22 -Sometimes I think what turned her on was my old broke down boots, she wanted her a real cowboy it was a phase she was just going through...

 

 

"She Couldn't Change Me" - Montgomery Gentry

from the album Carrying On (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (five weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from the duo Montgomery Gentry, two Kentucky natives who initially were in a band together along with Eddie Montgomery's younger brother John Michael in the early 1990s. After John left for what would be a very lucrative solo career, and Troy Gentry's attempt to do the same failed, Eddie and Troy came back together as Montgomery Gentry, and were signed to Columbia Records. Their debut single under the moniker, "Hillbilly Shoes", became a fan favorite, and while it stopped short of the top ten on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart at #13, the raucous rock-country song sold quite well and went to a respectable #62 on the crossover "pop" Hot 100. For the duo's follow-up, Eddie and Troy released the closest thing to a "country power-ballad", "Lonely and Gone"m which nearly made the Hot 100 at #46, while becoming their first top ten hit on country radio at #5.Their debut album, Tattoos & Scars, was released in April of that year, and rose to #131 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #10 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies.

 

In 2001, Eddie and Troy returned with the lead single from their sophomore effort, Carrying On. "She Couldn't Change Me" was written by industry veterans Chris Knight and Gary Nicholson, and produced by Joe Scaife, the same producer for their debut set. Sung lead by Montgomery, the song starts out with a relationship that apparently started out too quickly and after a week she moved all the way to California to get away from his stubborn ways (or maybe they were just never compatible to begin with). After a little while at the Pacific, though, somehow she's despondent and decides, hell, she'll just settle and comes back and conforms herself to him. It's pretty damn misogynistic to be frank, and the male superiority and "southern branding" posturing is a sign of what was to come in the genre, but at the time, the country crowd ate it up, and the pair found themselves with a bonafide crossover hit, even though it just missed the top of the country radio chart. In the music video, Gentry is given the lead man role that has the woman fleeing to just come back to...

 

 "She Couldn't Change Me" became Montgomery Gentry's first top-40 crossover hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in June of 2001. The song spent a hefty 33 weeks on the Country Airplay chart, with three of those in the #2 spot. The Carrying On album, released in May of that year, peaked at #49 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #6 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies, less than their debut, but not a total failure.

There was only one more single released from the album; "Cold One Comin' On", an attempt to recreate the dramatic power of "Lonely and Gone". Despite it being a better song than "She Couldn't Change Me", the single stopped cold at #23 on the Country Airplay chart, missing the Hot 100 altogether. But Montgomery Gentry will be back to the series.

(4/10)

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Here's the duo performing the song live in concert...

 

 

Up tomorrow: A pop icon requests a companion. America helps.