Songoftheday 08/09/24 - Connie came back for her second cousin's wedding, first time she'd been home in a year or two...

 

 

"You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of The Girl" - Brooks & Dunn

from the album Red Dirt Road (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from the country music duo Brooks & Dunn, whose eighth studio album Red Dirt Road had sent its title track to #1 on the country radio chart and the top-40 on Billboard magazine's all-genre Hot 100 in the summer of 2003.  The second single from the record was the rollicking party story "You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of The Girl". Written by Bart Allmand and Bob DiPiero, the lyrics tell a tale about Connie, a woman raised in the "sticks" but who moved to the city. However, her garbage blance nature was never expunged from her, and she proceeds to make a scene where apparently she steals her cousin's husband-to-be and fled to Mexico like Ted Cruz in a storm. The production from the pair with Mark Wright is their Rolling Stones-lite pastiche wheelhouse, but it's done well and they're having a great time that we're invited into. The music video rewrites the plot to remove the man-stealing...

"You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of The Girl" landed in the top-40 of Billboard's Hot 100 for a month in January of 2004, while spending five weeks at #3 on their Country Songs airplay chart. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, Brooks & Dun was nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Vocal Performance, losing to the (Dixie) Chicks for their live version of "Top Of The World". 

A third and final single from the album, "That's What She Gets For Loving Me", which Dunn co-wrote, peaked at #6 on the Country Songs chart, and #53 on the Hot 100. It also went to #2 on the re-instated Canadian Country Songs list. 

Brooks & Dunn will be back to the series.

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the duo appearing on their AOL Sessions webisode in 2004....

And lastly, live in concert...

Tomorrow I'll roll out my top hits of this week, then on Monday Song of the day will be back with a one-hit wonder who is breaking up for good.