Time to put on the sad stetson…
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[4.17]
Hillary Brown: Classic cornpone tear-jerker with an undeniable hook. If it only had a tiny bit bigger sense of fun, it’d be more monster.
[6]
Martin Kavka: This is a Serious Country Song – the fiddle tries to give some excitement to this track, and fails miserably – in which various men tell a woman to suck it up. Otherwise, she’s not a real cowgirl. But because of this stoicness, the woman portrayed in the song stays with her husband who continually “comes home late” (whether due to alcoholism or adultery, we don’t know). So yet again, men get to do what they want, and women have to put up with it. Dolly Parton wouldn’t stand for this, would she?
[1]
Edward Okulicz: Unless there’s a hidden subtitle that says “Instead, they kick the ass of the jerk who hurts them” then this is a pretty disturbing sentiment for a pop song, especially one whose initially jaunty fiddling is perhaps a third of the way towards being as happily braindead as Shania (albeit about one billionth as fun). Women should suppress their emotions! Women should take whatever crap comes their way with good humour and aplomb! Oh, and the way the fiddling gives way to Intense Seriousness is pretty cack-handed, and bringing in Reba for the last chorus can’t disguise the dead insincerity at the core of its lyrics and melody. She doesn’t even fit there – narratively or otherwise.
[2]
Martin Skidmore: I like the fiddle, the steel guitars and the main vocals – I’ve always liked that broken tone. I particularly like it when Reba comes in, partly because I like her voice, but also because this is a song that seems more suited for a woman than a man: with men singing it, its message approaches hectoring, but a woman singing makes it more personal and individual.
[7]
M. H. Lo: Not only did I not begrudge the reissuing of this song to cash in on the CMA performance, I was even ready for Reba’s newly added vocals to redefine the song, or increase its emo wallop. But no one involved in the venture seems to have noticed two problems: their voices don’t actually go together, and in the narrative of the song, the final chorus is supposed to be sung by the cowgirl’s father on his deathbed. Hence, with 50 seconds to go, the song Pauses Dramatically to prepare us for the wisdom of a dying man; what we get instead is an Awkward Key Change, followed by Reba’s voice, which, butch as it is, can’t really pass for a dying patriarch’s. Hilarity ensues.
[4]
Dave Moore: This song isn’t terrible — daddy told her when ya fall down ya gotta get back up and don’t cry and blah blah blah. Goes into weepier territory when her wild heart is finally broken in a series of male figure tragedies (bad marriage, father dies). But what with Bush being out of office and all, can we please please please announce a moratorium on cowboy imagery for, I dunno, two years? The nation needs time to heal.
[5]