Songoftheday 1/22/24 - I hear people saying we don't need this war, I say there's some things worth fighting for...

 

 

"Have You Forgotten?" - Darryl Worley

from the album Have You Forgotten? (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song comes from country music singer Darryl Worley, who had landed his first crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the autumn of 2002 with the ballad "I Miss My Friend".  Mind you, that was a year after the horrific terror attacks on 9/11. But after the follow-up single "Family Tree" failed to even make the top-20 on Billboard's Country Songs chart, Worley got on the jingoistic bandwagon for the fist-pumping patriot cash-in "Have You Forgotten?". Written by Worley with Wyn Varble, the lyrics start from the get go talking down to people who are wary of the United States entering an invasion of Iraq, even when they possibly supported the military going into Afghanistan, where the terrorists were trained. Of course, this has nothing to do with where the vast majority of those people were from as well as funded by, Saudi Arabia, because God forbid we don't want the price of gas to go up. In the first verse, he slips in the "they say we don't realize the mess we're gettin' in", which would prove to be quite prophetic considering the quagmire we ended up in (as well as diverting resources from Afghanistan). I won't bemoan going through the rest of the didactic preaching he spews with a self-righteous anger of someone who's never had to serve in the military. The production by Frank Rogers and James Stroud is expectedly professional, but it can't totally build up Worley's reedy voice for this type of posturing. He tried to backpedal that he wasn't talking specifically about Iraq, but the music video promoting this song sure tells a different story. The conclusion he wants is that if you question the ability to go to war, you are basically pissing on the memory of those killed on that date. It's disgusting, and it's craven in its capitalistic ambitions. It very well may be the worst song to make the top 40 until "Try That In A Small Town", and that's taking Toby Keith into account....

"Have You Forgotten?" spent seven weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart (like a blatant kiss-off to the Dixie Chicks), and reached the top-40 on the Hot 100 in April of 2003. Worley and his label DreamWorks records released an album of the same name, with cuts from his previous albums along with three more new songs. The record peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and topped the Country Albums list for four weeks (unseating the Chicks' Home), going on to sell over a half-million copies.

Despite the exposure from this success, Darryl again was unable to follow-up well, with second single "Tennessee River Run", a holdover from his sophomore album I Miss My Friend, which stopped at #31. Worley then tried to re-ride the war-machine train with "I Will Hold My Ground", but by then everyone had moved on and it stalled at #57.

But Darryl eventually recovered for at least one more trip on to this series in the future.

(0/10)

 

Up tomorrow: This stupendous rapper is tenacious.