The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 15

by Jim Poulton

John Michael Montgomery: I Swear

A great addition to your iPod lineup, I Swear is hard to put down once you’ve heard it. Montgomery’s voice has the range to make the demanding melody his own, and his band works well in counterpoint with the lyrics. A well-produced, well-conceived track with nice balance between multiple guitars, steel guitar, piano, and a nicely subtle drum track. Note how the instruments are in conversation with each other – just after the first chorus, for example, the piano first plays a brief resolving phrase, which is immediately echoed by the steel guitar, and then again by the acoustic guitar – giving the song satisfying texture and depth. Definitely deserving to be in the top 20.

John Michael Montgomery. Photo courtesy of countrymusictattletale.com.

Here's a video version of Montgomery's I Swear with a nice international flavor.

Visit Montgomery's website here. Buy I Swear at Amazon mp3 or iTunes.

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.