Songoftheday 10/17/23 -There's a for-sale sign on a big ol rusty tractor, you can't miss it it's the first thing that you see...

 

 

"My Town" - Montgomery Gentry

from the album My Town (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #40 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 1

 

Today's song comes from the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, who had landed their first crossover top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the summer of 2001 with "She Couldn't Change Me", the lead single from their second album Carrying On.  A year later, Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry returned with their third effort My Town, with the title track as the first single. Written by Reid Nelson and Jeffrey Steele, the lyrics are your basic pump your chests for your home town. At least considering the state of country music it's harmless pride instead of jingoism, with just a touch of reality in the mill being closed down without addressing who is responsible for it (since they continuously vote that party in time and time again). With a new producer this time around in Blake Chancey, the pair gets to flex their rock muscles more, although the "na-na-nas" on the chorus is a little rote. The music video films the duo in Perrysville and Lexington, Kentucky, where they grew up...

"My Town" became Montgomery Gentry's second top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in November of 2002, while climbing to #5 on the Country Songs radio chart. The My Town album, released in August of that year, came in at #26 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (spending a hefty 73 weeks on the list), and #3 on the Country Albums (with a full two years there), going on to sell over a million copies.

The second single from My Town was "Speed", a minor-key slow-burner that's the best of the hits, which also came in at #5 on the Country Songs chart, while missing the top-40 on the Hot 100 at #47. The same thing happened with the third release, the trying-too-hard party track "Hell Yeah", which peaked a notch higher at country radio at #4, which stopping at #45 on the Hot 100. 

Montgomery Gentry will be back to the series.

(4/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Eddie and Troy singing "My Town" live in concert in 2010...

After the death of Troy Gentry in 2017, Montgomery joined Dierks Bentley and Rascal Flatts to perform the song at the CMAs...

Up tomorrow: A pop star gives a pep talk.