Robbed hit of the week 2/20/23 - Reba McEntire's "I'm A Survivor"...

 

 

"I'm A Survivor" - Reba McEntire

from the album Greatest Hits Volume III: I'm A Survivor (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #49

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from country music legend Reba McEntire, who had scored her first top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in the beginning of 2000 with the song "What Would You Say" from her 25th studio album So Good Together. In 2001, McEntire started her television sitcom Reba, and took a few years off to concentrate on that. However during that time she also released her third greatest hits set, which included three new songs, one of which was the theme song for the show and the subtitle for the collection, "I'm A Survivor". Written by Shelby Kennedy and Philip White, the song tells a story of a woman who has overcome obstacles from her own birth...

I was born three months too early
The doctor gave me thirty days
But I must have had my mama's will
And Gods amazing grace

 

...to her divorce and forging a life on her own, the theme of the sitcom. While the production on the record from Reba and Tony Brown is sugar-sweet like a lot of TV themes, the lyrics are much more real and definitely not throwaway, and McEntire sells them like a professional actress as much as a singer. So much so that it proved to have a life beyond the television, as TikTok app users to this day use the song in their minivideos. The song kept her alive on country charts, and came close to landing another crossover top-40 hit..

 

 

While "I'm A Survivor" spent a week at #3 on Billboard's Country Songs radio chart, the single stopped just over the halfway mark on their Hot 100 in December of 2001. The Greatest Hits III album, released in October of that year, peaked at #18 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, while spending a week at #1 on their Country Albums list. 

 

For her follow-up Reba released a cover of Kenny Rogers' "Sweet Music Man", which went to #36 on the Country Songs chart. 

(8/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the rework of the song for the theme to Reba....

Next up performing in 2001 for an awards show...

Reba included the song in her charity concert in 2015...

Lastly, although McEntire didn't release a music video for "I'm A Survivor" back in 2001, when she "revisited" the song for her 2021 album, she did do one...