Songoftheday 11/20/24 - My old man's backhand used to land hard on the side of my head, I just learned to stay out of his way...

 

 

"If You Ever Stop Loving Me" - Montgomery Gentry

from the album You Do Your Thing (2004)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from the country-rock duo Montgomery Gentry, whose third album My Town had landed them a second hit that crossed over to the Top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with its title track in the late fall of 2002. Two years later, Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry returned with their fourth release on Columbia Nashville Records You Do Your Thing. The lead single from the record was "If You Ever Stop Loving Me", written by Bob DiPiero, Rivers Rutherford, and Tom Shapiro. The lyrics start out with some nostalgic child abuse, and goes on to have them sing about how everyone is against them except for their partner, which they proclaim is the only thing getting them through. The production from Rutherford is square in the southern rock vein, with a melodic hook that seems vaguely familiar, if a bit sing-songy, with Gentry taking the lead vocals for a change...

"If You Ever Stop Loving Me" landed the duo their third hit to make the top-40 on the Hot 100 in July of 2004. The song also became their first #1 hit on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart. Internationally, the single made it to #3 on the Canadian Country list as well. The You Do Your Thing album, released in May of that year, scored their highest charting rank and only top ten set on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #10, while coming in at #2 on the Country Albums list, spending a hundred weeks on the latter and going on to sell over a million copies.

 

The pair released the title track "You Do Your Thing" as the follow-up, but it stalled down at #22 on the Country Singles chart, missing the Hot 100 altogether.  They did better with the third release, "Gone", which spent two weeks at #3 on the Country Songs chart and returned them to the Hot 100 at #53. Lastly, the albums opening track "Something To Be Proud Of" topped the Country Songs list for two weeks, and came a notch from making the Hot 100's Top-40 at #41.

Montgomery Gentry will be back to the series.

(4/10)

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Here's the duo performing on the Don Imus show...

and lastly, in concert in 2008...

Up tomorrow: A Bad Boy rapper from the late 90s makes a return.