Favorite Country Album Tracks - Part 2

 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, some of my favorite songs (to my knowledge) were never released as singles. If the song was released but never made the country music top 40 charts, I might not know about it.  What follows will be another 10 of my many many favorite album tracks. I'm not ranking the songs. In each post, I'll provide the song title followed by the recording artist, the songwriters (in parenthesis), part of the lyric, the album title, year of release and maybe a comment.

 

The Dreaming Fields - Trisha Yearwood (Matraca Berg & Gary Harrison) from her 2007 album "Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love".

"So I'm going down to the dreaming fields
But what will be my harvest now?
Where every tear that falls on a memory feels
Like rain on a rusted plow, rain on a rusted plow"

 

Matraca also recorded the song on her 2011 album "The Dreaming Fields"

 

"Summer of My Dreams" - Kathy Mattea (David Mallett) from her 1991 album "Time Passes By"

"In the shade of this old tree,
In the summer of my dreams.
By the tall grass, by the wild rose,
Where the trees dance, as the beans grow,
As the days go, oh, so slowly:
As the sun shines, oh, so holy:
On the good and gracious green,
On the summer of my dreams."  

 

"Waiting Tables" - Don Henley (Don Henley, Stan Lynch, Steuart Smith & Timothy B. Schmit) from his 2015 album "Cass County"

 

"She married a boy as soon as she got out of school
But he turned out to be a reckless fool
Gone are the days when she was worry-free
Now she's a single mom; she's only twenty-three

 

And she's waiting tables, she's just waiting tables
She's learned a lot about people - more than she
ever wanted to know
She's just waiting tables, waiting tables
Biding her time until there's somewhere else to go"

 

"How Do I Get Off the Moon" - Doug Stone (Donny Kees, Kerry Kurt Phillips & Randy Boudreaux) from his 2005 album "In a Different Light".

Tell me how do I get these stars from my eyes
And how do I get on with my life
How do I hold someone new when I can't let go of you
Tell me how do I get off the moon,

 

"Steady As she Goes" - Wade Hayes (Don Cook/Ronnie Dunn/Kix Brooks) from his 1995 album "Old Enough to Know Better"

 

"Tonight I came home late again
She didn't ask me where I've been
Her bags were packed and sitting by the door
She looked at me and said goodbye
I did my best to change her mind
But she don't want to hear it anymore

 

She's steady as she goes
Now she's not crying
If I said it didn't hurt
I'd be lying
Where she got the strength to leave
Heaven only knows
But she's rock steady as she goes"

 

 

"Babies" - David Nail (Scooter Carusoe, Lee Thomas Miller & David Nail) from his "Fighter" album" of 2016

 

"But for ever thrill that I chased down
It's easy to confess
I found a better kind of crazy
Now that I've got babies

 

And good things come to those who wait
Used to think that's just something people say
So imagine when you get the news
After years of trying
Not just one but two"

Athens Grease - Phil Vassar (Steve Mandile, Jerry Vandiver & Phil Vassar) from his 2002 album "American Child"

 

Six days a week, he's a man on a mission
He's the redneck Picasso of
The manual transmission
And the only man in town who can make
Charlie Vincent's van go   (love those groaners)

 

Handyman's Dream - Suzy Bogguss (Pam Tillis & Gary Nicholson) from her 1989 album "Somewhere Between)

 

"My life could use some fixin' up.
Lately, these old empty nights
are looking pretty rough.
This heart is falling apart at the seams.
I am a handyman's dream.

Oh, can't you see it wouldn't take much
to replace these worn out memories
with a brand new love?
I need a man who's not afraid
to roll up his sleeves.
I am a handyman's dream."

 

We Can't Unmake Love - Wynonna duet w John Berry (Will Robinson & Aaron Saine) from her 1997 album "The Other Side".

"Before God and family we made the perfect start
And swore death would be the only thing to keep us apart
But we're fighting just like soldiers on a field of battle now
And the life we made together is our only common ground
She's got your eyes, my nose and our hearts"

"We can't unmake love
And just erase all the years
The sweetest little girl
In all the world will still be here
We promised love would last
She's living proof it still does
So even if we wanted to give up
We can't unmake love"

 

"Mama's Opry" - Sunny Sweeney (Iris DeMent) from her 2007 album "Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame".

 

"The Carters and Jimmy Rodgers played her favorite songs
And on Saturday nights there was a radio show
And she would sing along
And I'll never forget her face when she revealed to me
That she'd dreamed about singing at The Grand Old Opry

Her eyes, oh, how they sparkled
When she sang those songs.
She was hanging the clothes on the line,
I was a kid just a hummin' along.
Well, I'd be playing in the grass, to her,
What might've seemed, obliviously. (how often is "obliviously" found in a song?)
There ain't no doubt about it,
She sure made her mark on me."

 

"Slow Swinging Western Tunes" - Sunny Sweeney (Sunny Sweeney) also from her "Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame" album.

"Slow swinging western tunes
Coming from the juke box late last June
This was the way our love song should start
Play it in reverse and you'll get yourself a broken heart"

oops! that's 11

oh well

 

Do you think any of these album tracks would have been successful if they had been released as singles?