The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 16

by Jim Poulton

Hank Williams: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

Not your run of the mill love song - more of a love lost song - but I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry is a tune so perfectly constructed it embedded itself in the unconscious of an entire nation - ready to play its lovelorn melody whenever we're feeling blue about love. Williams sings it in a plaintive voice, somewhere between a lament and a wail, that will awaken delicate memories of yearning and loss, and the delicious loves so powerful they could make us feel this way.

Hank Williams. Photo courtesy of Last.fm.

Here's I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry along with a nice montage of photos of Williams:

A song this good has to have been covered by other musicians, right? You bet. Here's Johnny Cash:

Here's Elvis:

And here's a link to Glen Campbell's version - the best part is its soulful, bluesy harmonica accompaniment by Steve Hardin.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 17

by Jim Poulton

Keith Urban: Making Memories of Us

Keith Urban. Photo courtesy of keithurban.net.

Making Memories of Us is a song written from innocence, from the earliest tiptoes of love. Where Remember When (Number 18) looked back on years that have passed, Urban sings about his promise to make memories worth remembering. ‘I’ll earn your trust making memories of us,’ he says. It’s a sweet devotion to all those expansive, live-altering and often foolhardy emotions that invade us with Cupid’s arrows. Fortunately for the love song industry, many of us survive all those emotions. For others, those arrows are a bit more like spears and harpoons. But keep the faith. With 7 billion people in the world, there’s got to be somebody for you.

See Urban's website here.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 18

by Jim Poulton

Alan Jackson: Remember When

Alan Jackson. Photo courtesy of alanjackson.com.

Remember When: a nostalgic anthem - like a tour through your favorite photo album. The minimal production - especially at first when only a guitar and mandolin are playing - emphasizes the feeling of a man looking back on his life and knowing he’d do it all again. Think of yourself thirty years from now, sitting in your living room at dusk, looking at photos of your spouse, your kids, all the time that has passed. That’s the mood Jackson is expressing. And his voice is clear and strong enough to make me believe he knows what he’s talking about.

See Jackson's website here.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 19

by Jim Poulton

Vince Gill: Look At Us

Vince Gill. Photo courtesy of vincegill.com.

Nostalgia seems to be pretty big in the love song business doesn’t it? It’s telling us something deep, but I’m not sure what. (Anyone?) Maybe it has to do with how true love – if it’s really true – is always launching itself into eternity. All you have to do is remember your high school sweetheart and you know what I mean. You felt epic, like your story would be repeated a million years from now, because how could anything be more riveting?

Vince Gill’s voice isn’t the best of the great country singers. But what he lacks in timbre and fullness he makes up for with sincerity. He sings with a calm, slow confidence, and the unimposing accompaniment matches the mood: competent musicians, all aware that their main job is to get out of the way of the song’s message. 

See Vince Gill's website here.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time

by Jim Poulton

What a job! Choosing the best of anything is tough – even if one stands Stetson and shoulders above all the rest. But to select the Top 20 Country Love Songs of all time? … that’s like choosing your favorite sunset.

I’m sure each of you will have your own ideas about what songs should be at the top – Great! Let us know, and tell us why.

In the meantime, here are our choices for the Top 20 Love Songs. We’ll be posting a song a day until Valentine’s Day, when we’ll announce our Number One song. Keep checking back - some of these songs will surprise you!

Number 20:

Lyle Lovett's She's No Lady

Even though I've been a musician for more than 30 years, tonight was the first time I heard this song. And I loved it!!! I want my own band to do it (are you listening, boys?). Reasons I liked it: 

Lyrics - the unexpected lyrics in this song made me smile. They talk about the pains and hassles of married life, but in a way that makes you whisper quietly to yourself: It was all worth it.

Music - A sultry and slinky 8-bar blues, spiced up with jazz riffs and Lovett's best crooner voice - hard to top!

Video - The video is of Lovett performing the song in an uptown jazz club, but interspersed are scenes of (obviously) married couples. The effect is the same as the music + lyrics: you get to see firsthand the humanness of long-lasting love.

A great song - and well worth being on the Top 20 list!

Unfortunately, we can't embed the video for this song, but you can see it by clicking here ...