Thursday, May 28, 2009

Top Ten George Strait Songs

Editor's note: Blake Shelton was just one of the country music stars who honoured their musical hero during George Strait: ACM Artist of the Decade All Star Concert, a TV special that aired Wednesday (May 27) at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Blake's List

Taking my cue from Blake, here are my top ten George Strait songs and the reason why:

Love Without End, Amen During my last few years of high school I discovered that country music was good music to have on while I was doing homework. There were a few songs that jumped out at me. Love Without End, especially the line “When I became a father in the spring of '81” because I was born in the summer of ’81.

I Hate Everything Was the single during the summer of 2004 when I attended my first major concert. George Strait with special guest, Dierks Bentley, at the Commodore in Vancouver. That show changed my life in that I have been to countless concerts since and am a massive Dierks fan, all because George took him on tour.

You Look So Good In Love Dedicated to someone nameless who God has shown me, wasn’t right for me. Even if I thought we would have been good together. He really does “Look So Good In Love” and I wish them all the best.

You Can’t Make a Heart Love Somebody Dedicated to another nameless individual. This song just sums up my feelings exactly. Aside from leaving it up to God, one can’t “do” anything. And no, he's never proposed (or anything close to that) but the line "you can lead a heart to love, but you can't make it fall" is just so appropriate.

Heartland The shortest, best rockin’ George song evah.

Blue Clear Sky The fact that Dierks sang this song last night on the tribute certainly doesn’t hurt, but I’ve loved “Blue Clear Sky” for longer than that. I’ve “Given up on that little lie they call love” many times and I’m just waiting for something to come out of the Blue Clear Sky

Ocean Front Property I admit, this song bugged me for a LONG time. I just didn’t GET it When I finally stopped to listen and understood the sarcasm and subtlety, I fell in love. Not to mention that it’s one of the best sounding George Strait songs out there.

Amarillo By Morning By far the most overlooked GS songs, in that it didn’t go to number one. (I think it peaked at #4 or so). This is one of the best rodeo songs ever. It captures the heart ache and addiction that a true rodeo cowboy feels paired with incredible music. (By the way, this ties with “I Can Still Make Cheyenne”)

I Just Want to Dance With You We do dance to this one at Square Dance…not often enough in my opinion. My favourite part is the whistling. It just seems so carefree. I love it!

Texas Cooking Literally, my Texas trip in a song. So fun!

Bonus: Murder on Music Row Dedicated to my mom. She’s a huge fan of the steel guitar and often complains that they don’t use it enough anymore. Plus this song just has it’s finger on the pulse of modern country music.

3 comments:

Shelljo said...

Remember Heidi, Amarillo was George's first hit. When it came out, George was competing with Alabama! Getting to #4 for his first release was very significant! (And, it was one of my favorite songs when it came out!)

Shelljo said...

Good list, I'm not sure I could narrow down my list to 10 George songs tho. I'd add "The chair" as one of my favorites.

agent713 said...

I didn't know that it was his first hit. I guess I always think of "Fool Hearted Memory" because that one went number one. I was two when this song was realeased...no, I was 18 months. So I definitely didn't hear it on the radio ;) Thanks for the history! I agree that being up against Alabama is a fantastic reason for not going higher :)

And yes, the Chair is a classic song. I'd be apt to put that on a list of "best country music songs" ever.