Songoftheday 12/8/22 - Here we are what is left of a husband and a wife with four good kids, who have a way of gettin on with their lives...

 

 

"Angry All The Time" - Tim McGraw

from the album Set This Circus Down (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 3

 

Today's song comes from country music star Tim McGraw, who had returned to the crossover Hot 100 top-40 in the summer of 2001 with the lead single from his album Set This Circus Down "Grown Men Don't Cry".  Another cut from the album, the uptempo "Telluride", got enough unsolicited radio airplay to spend 18 weeks on the Country Songs chart starting that spring with a high of #52. The second single promoted to radio was the woeful ballad "Angry All The Time". Written by Bruce Robison (who would go on to write for the (Dixie) Chicks, the song featured harmony vocals from Tim's wife Faith Hill, though she wouldn't be credited on the label outright (maybe an awards thing?). In it Tim mourns a dying longtime relationship, saying he's not leaving for another but rather for the "life he feels left behind". It's really sad, as it puts the woman in the abuser position, but that's real life and real life problems. The line about hoping his kids can grow to know that all women aren't like her and she always wasn't like that is heartbreaking. The record and production is very simple, and there wasn't even a music video shot for it, and that makes the pain of this performance shine through. 

 

 "Angry All The Time" spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Country Songs chart, and brought him back to the Hot 100 top-40 in September of 2001. Both Tim and the album will be back to the series.

(8/10)

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For this TV performance, Martina McBride subbed in for Faith...

Up tomorrow: This Canadian song-bird is ready for bed, perhaps.