Songoftheday 11/21/23 - My brother said that I was rotten to the core, I was the youngest child so I got by with more...

 

 

"The Baby" - Blake Shelton

from the album The Dreamer (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from Blake Shelton, who had burst onto the Nashville scene with his debut single "Austin", which topped the country chart and crossed over to the top-20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the autumn of 2001. A year later, Blake returned with the lead single from his upcoming sophomore effort The Dreamer, "The Baby". Written by Harley Allen and Michael White, the song is a an ode to motherhood, placing Shelton as the youngest child recounting all the thing his mom did for him. The lyrics jokingly admit he was her favorite, as his gallivanting ways was part of the "youngest child" package. But the final verse gets sad as he is called home when she is dying, only to arrive too late, twisting the meaning of "baby" to him crying. It's a nice enough story without getting heavy-handed on morality, and for it's honoring your parents niche it accomplished what it set out to do. The production from mentor Bobby Braddock is simple and direct, and Blake's voice is strong but emotional, without the faux-redneck affect he later adopted. The music video shocks today with Shelton's long locks...

"The Baby" became Blake's second single to reach the top-40 on the Hot 100 in February of 2003, while spending three weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart. The Dreamer album, released in February as the song was peaking, came in at #8 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a half-million copies.

Shelton's next single, album opener "Heavy Liftin'", was his first to try to cast him in a "country rock" vein (but not the last), but the seemingly-forced workingman anthem didn't quite hit. It stopped at #32 on the Country Songs chart. That was followed by the more light-hearted "Playboys Of The Southwestern World", which did a little better, peaking at #24. 

Blake will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's Shelton performing the song in concert in 2009...

Up tomorrow: Canadian country band take a tumble.