Categories: Music

Top 10 Classic Country Songs

Country music is an American folk art that has evolved quite a bit over the twentieth century. It’s primarily Southern roots have led to a sound that embodies various spirits and attitudes of the South and southern country music fan. My list seeks to measure the great country music classic as a combination of honesty, purity, and profound insight into the human condition. The songwriter should start with a heartfelt emotion and nurse it into something others can understand, sympathize with, dance to or cry with. It’s a song that should stand the test of time, with emotions inherent to humanity.

10. Harper Valley PTA – Jeannie C. Riley

It’s a story as long as old as human society: a group of gossips try to tell other how to live their lives. It’s the American attitude personified: who are you to tell me what to do? A girl proudly recounts her mother stands up to the bullying of her PTA by firing back at them with their own medicine, rattling off their shames. What’s more satisfying then defending one’s own actions and exposing hypocrites for who they are? This song was so successful that it spawned a spin-off movie and a TV series.

9. King of the Road-Roger Miller

It’s an anthem of freedom; it personifies the American attitudes of adventure, of resourcefulness, of traveling carefree. It’s a dream many people share: to ride the boxcars, to work on a day-to-day basis, to have not a care in the modern world. Roger Miller’s tale of a happy-go-lucky man, riding the rails, making do as he can, is still a well known ditty for the young-at-heart, easy-going traveler.

8. I Walk the Line-Johnny Cash

This song is probably made by the man who sang it. When you can get the man in black, the man who shot a man in Reno to ‘keep a close watch on this heart’, you’ve made an impact. The candidness in Johnny’s delivery is overwhelming: he loves her so much that he’s going to watch himself. No drugs, no other women. He will walk that line for your love.

7. Gotta get Drunk – Willie Nelson

What list of country songs is complete without an ode to alcohol? Willie Nelson’s hit is honest, simple, and a bit whimsical. No drinker believes that alcoholism is a good thing, but Willie does his damndest to rationalize it. Hell, doctors may tell him to quit, but “there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors”. Sure the logic’s flawed, but when it comes from Willie, and the result is more alcohol, who’s gonna argue?

6. Hey Good Lookin’- Hank Williams

It’s simple, it’s honest, and the tune stays with you. It’s boy meets girl, rattles off a cheesy pick up line, and hopes to get some action out of the deal. The lyrics are subtly sexual: “hows about cookin something up with me” could mean be an adult event or a simple date. Still, this 1951 song with dated lyrics (the singer tries to entice the object of his interest with a 2 dollar bill), it’s still a well-known earworm of pop culture.

5. Sixteen Tons -“Tennessee” Ernie Ford

Ernie’s voice is just like the coal miners he empathizes with: gritty and honest. The song about the never ending labor the coalman endures, always breaking his back at his job, only to get ‘deeper in debt’. The hyperbole of being denied access to heaven, because your soul is owed to the company store is the perfect snapshot of the thankless job.

4. Making Believe-Kitty Wells

In this 1955 classic, Kitty laments her former lover’s leaving her, and tries to come to grips with the fact that she ‘can’t hold you close, Darlin/ when you’re not with” her. Many lovers have found this sad truth to be a reality: missing a lost love, pining for them, and ‘making believe’. While Kitty’s candid vocals with simple instrumentation convey the message perfectly, modern honky-tonk and punk connoisseurs may prefer Mike Ness’s (of Social Distortion fame) cover.

3. The Gambler-Kenny Rogers

This song starts with a simple premise: a lonely narrator is grieving over his troubles, and shares conversation and alcohol with an old gambler. The gambler gives our weary soul some tried and true advice in the form of poker metaphors with which he’s all too familiar. In the end, we realize he probably learned his lessons the hard way, as he ‘breaks even’ alone, in the middle of the night sitting next to a stranger on a train. The story telling is flawless.

2. Crazy-Patsy Cline

People love people. Sometimes people love people for reasons that defy all logic, and are held prisoner by their own emotions. Few among us have never suffered love’s folly: giving someone your all, only to have it fall apart, and then feeling like an utter fool. When the rest of the world seems to make perfect sense, and you realize that it was just you who were the fool, you feel completely helpless and insane.

1. Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash

Of course Johnny had to top this list. The simple mariachi horns opening give the song an upbeat feel which contrast with Johnny’s deep dark voice, as he tells you about love: a burning thing. The song recognizes that love, like fire, is both awesome and extremely dangerous. Its taste is sweet, it makes you feel just like a child, but watch out: it can burn, that ring of fire.