Dean Dillon on Modern Country: “Every Song is About the Same Damn Thing.”
Songwriter and performer Dean Dillon has more skins on the wall than Kodiak Jack, and just his handlebar mustache is more manly than all the moronic Bro-Country songwriters on Music Row lumped together and tied in a bundle. Your favorite George Strait songs? There’s a good chance they were written by Dean Dillon. All of them. He’s written more than 50 songs for Strait, and all but one Strait album has at least one Dean Dillon song on it. There arguably is no George Strait without Dean Dillon. He’s also written songs for Vern Gosdin, Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, co-wrote “Tennessee Whiskey” for David Allan Coe, then George Jones, then Chris Stapleton, as well as dozens of other timeless hits over the years.
Dean Dillon remains one of the most well-respected songwriters in all the business of country music. That’s why whenever he speaks, you’d be smart to bend your ear and listen. Talking with Wide Open Country recently ahead of the premier of a new documentary on him called Tennessee Whiskey: The Dean Dillon Story in May, Dillon had some pointed things to say about his counterparts writing Bro-Country songs.
“You gotta understand, I live, eat, sleep and breathe songs,” Dillon says. “Where are all the great songs that I know get written in Nashville? Every song is about the same damn thing. Daisy Dukes, trucks, beer, lake banks, time, after time, after time, after time. The bro country thing started 12 years ago, and 12 years later, they’re still singing the same things. Do they not evolve? Get older? Get married? Have kids? Get jobs and shift in society? There’s no movement in it.“
Funny that Dean Dillon mentions evolving, because that’s the line of bull many Bro-Country proponents regularly feed the public to justify why Bro-Country is okay. The problem is there’s nothing evolutionary about the static beats and simplistic writing indicative of Bro-Country. It’s devolution. The songwriting of Dean Dillon and other legacy country songwriters regularly features involved storytelling, a moral, some sort of realization within the character of the song that helps spread enlightenment, understanding, and comfort.
Simple and fun songs are a necessary part of music, and country music too. But it’s a shame that many mainstream listeners don’t know what they’re missing living in an era when songs from writers like Dean Dillon are no longer on the radio.
DarthChase
April 24, 2017 @ 8:53 am
Back in my day…this is such an old man take.
Tom
April 24, 2017 @ 8:58 am
I think I caught a typo in your comment, you had “old” where you meant to say “clear-headed and rational”. Honest mistake, anyone could have made it.
Ryan
April 24, 2017 @ 9:02 am
An old man who truly cares (and is arguably one of THE most prolific songwriters in Nashville) about the integrity of country music and the craft of songwriting versus it being used as a muse to get laid in his truck on a river bank by the moonlight……who wants to hear Luke Bryan at 55 years old singing Country Girl Shake It For Me or Move………no thanks.
DarthChase
April 24, 2017 @ 9:11 am
Last hit he wrote?
albert
April 24, 2017 @ 9:14 am
He doesn’t just have hits ….he has’ STANDARDS ‘
shastacatfish
April 24, 2017 @ 10:48 am
^ What he said!
ElectricOutcast
April 24, 2017 @ 11:56 am
And the Academy Award goes to
Trigger
April 24, 2017 @ 9:17 am
“Tennessee Whiskey” was massive, #1 platinum-selling hit for Chris Stapleton last year, and without any radio support. If nothing else, that should illustrate the enduring legacy of a Dean Dillon song.
DarthChase
April 24, 2017 @ 9:22 am
He wrote that in the 70s? And a George Jones/DAC cover doesnt count. How about latest #1 Billboard single? (It is very self serving if he is complaining about quality now that he cant get on the radio). If he has recent hits, not so much
Trigger
April 24, 2017 @ 9:35 am
“Tennessee Whiskey” was a #1 song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in late 2015, and in early 2016. “Tennessee Whiskey” was nominated for Song of the Year at the ACMs which just went down THIS MONTH (and Dean Dillon was at). The whole reason Dean Dillon was being interviewed and left this quote is because there is a documentary on him coming out next month. The idea that Dillon is sour grapes because he’s receiving no recognition just doesn’t hold up. Who gives a shit when he wrote the song? Time is the harshest critic of all and that should be something he’s proud of—that a song of his has been a hit in two separate decades separated by 20 years.
Spoony
April 24, 2017 @ 9:28 am
Your point? Troll.
WaylonCash
April 24, 2017 @ 9:43 am
Artist Song Co-writers
Alabama “Changes Comin’ On”
Brooks & Dunn “I’ll Never Forgive My Heart” Ronnie Dunn, Janine Dunn
David Allan Coe “Tennessee Whiskey” Linda Hargrove
Gary Stewart “An Empty Glass” Gary Stewart
George Jones “Tennessee Whiskey” Linda Hargrove
George Strait “A Real Good Place to Start” Gary Nicholson
George Strait “Any Old Love Won’t Do” Frank Dycus
George Strait “Back to Bein’ Me” Hank Cochran
George Strait “Down and Out” Frank Dycus
George Strait “Drinkin’ Man” George Strait, Bubba Strait
George Strait “Easy Come, Easy Go” Aaron Barker
George Strait “Famous Last Words of a Fool” Rex Huston
George Strait “For Christ’s Sake, It’s Christmas” Hank Cochran
George Strait “Four Down and Twelve Across” Tom Douglas
George Strait “Friday Night Fever” Frank Dycus, Blake Mevis
George Strait “Give Me More Time” Al Anderson, Scotty Emerick
George Strait “Good News, Bad News” Dale Dodson, Lee Ann Womack
George Strait “Her Goodbye Hit Me in the Heart” Frank Dycus
George Strait “He’s Got That Something Special” George Strait, Bubba Strait
George Strait “Holding My Own” Pam Belford
George Strait “Honk If You Honky Tonk” Ken Mellons, John Northrup
George Strait “Honky Tonk Crazy” Frank Dycus
George Strait “Honkytonkville” Buddy Brock, Kim Williams
George Strait “I Ain’t Her Cowboy Anymore” Scotty Emerick, Maria Cannon-Goodman
George Strait “I Believe” George Strait, Bubba Strait
George Strait “I Get Along With You” Frank Dycus, Murray F. Cannon, Raleigh Squires, and Jimmy Darrell
George Strait “I’d Just as Soon Go” Aaron Barker
George Strait “If I Know Me” Pam Belford
George Strait “If Heartaches Were Horses” Buddy Brock, Wil Nance
George Strait “If It’s Gonna Rain” Scotty Emerick, Donny Kees
George Strait “I’m All Behind You Now”
George Strait “Is It That Time Again” Buddy Cannon, Vern Gosdin
George Strait “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You” Royce Porter
George Strait “I’ve Come to Expect It From You” Buddy Cannon
George Strait “Lead On” Teddy Gentry
George Strait “Living for the Night” George Strait, Bubba Strait
George Strait “Marina del Rey” Frank Dycus
George Strait “Nobody in His Right Mind Would’ve Left Her
George Strait “Ocean Front Property” Hank Cochran, Royce Porter
George Strait “Peace of Mind” Aaron Barker
George Strait “Rockin’ in the Arms of Your Memory” Norro Wilson
George Strait “She Let Herself Go” Kerry Kurt Phillips
George Strait “She’s Playing Hell Trying to Get Me to Heaven” David Wills, Charles Quillen
George Strait “She Took the Wind From His Sails” Donny Kees
George Strait “That’s My Kind of Woman” Tammy Hyler
George Strait “That’s the Breaks” Royce Porter
George Strait “That’s Where I Wanna Take Our Love” Hank Cochran
George Strait “The Best Day” Carson Chamberlain
George Strait “The Breath You Take” Jessie Jo Dillon, Casey Beathard
George Strait “The Chair” Hank Cochran
George Strait “The Road Less Traveled” Buddy Brock
George Strait “Unwound” Frank Dycus
George Strait “We’re Supposed to Do That Now and Then” David Anthony, Joseph-Nicholas-Pancrac Royer
George Strait “West Texas Town” Robert Earl Keen
George Strait “What Would Your Memories Do” Hank Cochran
George Strait “When You’re in Love” Kerry Kurt Phillips
George Strait “Without Me Around” John Northrup
George Strait “Without You Here” Royce Porter
George Strait “You Sure Got This Ol’ Redneck Feelin’ Blue” Buzz Rabin
Hank Williams, Jr., Waylon Jennings, and Ernest Tubb “Leave Them Boys Alone”
Keith Whitley “Miami, My Amy”
Keith Whitley “Homecoming ’63”
Kenny Chesney “A Chance” Royce Porter
Kenny Chesney “A Lot of Things Different” Bill Anderson
Kenny Chesney “Be As You Are” Kenny Chesney
Kenny Chesney “Boats” Kenny Chesney, Scotty Emerick
Kenny Chesney “Guitars and Tiki Bars” Kenny Chesney, Mark Tamburino
Kenny Chesney “I’m Alive” Kenny Chesney, Mark Tamburino
Kenny Chesney “She Always Says It First” Kenny Chesney
Kenny Chesney “Soul of a Sailor” Kenny Chesney, Scotty Emerick
Kenny Chesney “The Angel at the Top of My Tree” Kenny Chesney, Buddy Cannon
Lee Ann Womack “Have You Seen That Girl?”
Lee Ann Womack “Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago”
Lee Ann Womack “We’ve Called It Everything But Quits”
Pam Tillis “All the Good Ones Are Gone”
Pam Tillis “Spilled Perfume”
Paul Overstreet “If I Could Bottle This Up”
Rodney Atkins “The Corner” Dale Dodson, Jessie Jo Dillon
Sammy Kershaw “One Day Left to Live”
Shenandoah “Darned If I Don’t (Danged If I Do)” Ronnie Dunn
Toby Keith “A Little Too Late” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Ain’t No Right Way” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Burnin’ Moonlight” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Get My Drink On” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Go with Her” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “I Ain’t Already There” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Knock Yourself Out” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Note to Self” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “Too Far This Time” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Toby Keith “You Ain’t Leaving (Thank God Are Ya)” Toby Keith, Scotty Emerick
Vern Gosdin “Is It Raining at Your House”
Vern Gosdin “Set ‘Em Up, Joe”
Vince Gill “Whippoorwill River” Vince Gill
shastacatfish
April 24, 2017 @ 10:53 am
Man, Empty Glass is my favorite Gary Stewart song. It’s as heart breaking as many of his others but there is just something else about it. Maybe it is the lack of a pun like She’s Acting Single or Drinking Thing, that makes it feel like it is some regular guy in some small bar somewhere. Like half the heartbreak is how ordinary the guy is. I don’t know, I’m probably off base.
Luckyoldsun
April 24, 2017 @ 11:59 am
Great list!
Now, why can’t Wikipedia post–or link to–lists like that for songwriters.?
They list every album that an artist has put out, but they don’t list songwriters’ songs.
BTW, Hank Cochran and Buddy Cannon are the first listed songwriters on “Set ’em Up Joe,” With its allusions to ’50s country–and also to Sinatra–I’d guess that Cochran might have had the bigger hand in that song than Dillon.
Amanda
April 24, 2017 @ 12:01 pm
Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago. One of my favorite Lee Ann Womack songs. And her duet with The great George Strait, Everything But Quits, is fantastic as well.
Nathan38401
April 24, 2017 @ 6:57 pm
Alabama – Changes Coming On…. One of my all time favorites. That song is an example of how music can evolve in sound from one generation to the next, but still be expertly written. Music evolution doesn’t equal lazy story telling.
Mike Allen
April 24, 2017 @ 4:05 pm
Tennessee Whiskey for Chris Stapleton
James
April 25, 2017 @ 12:35 pm
Hard to write a hit considering what he said. It’s all the same and if he refuses to write those songs…
Greg Viers
April 25, 2017 @ 6:50 pm
He doesn’t write a song to be a hit. He writes it to be pure, real, heartfelt, and not a cookie cutter that my 8 year old could jot down on a napkin at Applebees. Notice the names of the people who use his song are only the biggest and the best.
Lisa Sez
November 13, 2018 @ 9:50 am
Tennessee Whiskey duet Justin Timberlake/ Chris Stapleton to name only one…
Roscoe P Coltrane
April 24, 2017 @ 9:57 am
Oops…you mistakenly clicked onto this website. Apparently you were in search of the Sam Hunt fangirl club site. Honest mistake Darth! All is forgiven. Buh …bye….P.S. this is a COUNTRY music blog.
DarthChase
April 24, 2017 @ 12:06 pm
No one has said when his last #1 billboard radio song was. Was it Kenny Chesney?
He does have a great list of songs from the 70s and 80s though. Would be tough to top
Cobra
April 24, 2017 @ 12:35 pm
Oh, DarthChase. There you go, equating “quality” and “popularity” again. May I suggest investing in a dictionary, or a thesaurus?
DarthChase
April 24, 2017 @ 1:14 pm
How else would you define a hit? Is a hit movie the one that grosses 500 million or the one that makes 10 mil and wins Best Picture?
As always, the groupthink here is strong.
Almost every artist seems to get bitter as they age even if they had a ton of hits early in their career. I love those old songs but they are old which seems to be just a fact.
Cobra
April 24, 2017 @ 1:18 pm
Oh, DarthChase. There you go, equating “quality” and “popularity” again. May I suggest investing in a dictionary, or a thesaurus?
Just because something is popular and loved by a group of idiots doesn’t make it quality.
By your definition, the Kardashians are some quality shit.
gtrman86
April 24, 2017 @ 2:52 pm
Darth, you are clearly a 13 year old girl who believes Sam Hunt is a Country artist and Garth Brooks is Traditional Old School Country . I’m not sure why the word “Old” has anything to do with success or anything music related for that matter. What I do know, is that FGL, Sam Hunt, and the rest of the bullshit modern day skin puppets will never get the chance to have their music called old, mainly for the reason that NOBODY will be listening to it in 20 years. Have a look at the fine work of Mr. Dillon and legions of other Country greats and it’s quite apparent that good music is timeless. Unlike the current bush league phony pop shit flash in the pan flavour of the month douche bags on modern country radio. Respect is earned, not a brand created at a record label.
WRS
April 24, 2017 @ 3:32 pm
DarthChase I would love to know who you think is a great songwriter since you don’t think Dean Dillon is. Please include a list of their #1 hits also.
heather
April 25, 2017 @ 5:56 am
Off the top of my head, I was thinking Kenny Chesney’s, “The Good Stuff.” There have been other popular ones that he co-wrote more recently…not sure if they hit #1, but I distinctly remember hearing a new song and thinking “that’s more like it,” looking up the song, and laughing to see it was written or co-written by Dean Dillon
She Let Herself Go” by George Strait was second to mind.
Greg Viers
April 25, 2017 @ 7:07 pm
Kenny has used about 10 or 12 of Dillon songs. But Kenny writes a lot of his own like Miranda Lambert does as well. If you will notice the bigger names that continually have back to back to back top albums write at least 75% of their own stuff. It’s real, not cookie cutter, it’s from the heart and that really what makes a good song. Yes you get the summertime hit with the same old beat sometimes from the mass production country looker of the year that has a bigger bicep and a 8pk instead of a 6pk but you don’t hear from him in 3 years. The long-term true musicians like to perform their own stuff.
Mike L.
April 24, 2017 @ 2:23 pm
Nothin’ wrong with goin’ back and salvaging something before corruption ran away with it. I guess that’s what they’d call a schizophrenic break, or being “touched,” on an individual level; some people make so many mistakes in life that they go on that backward journey to find out where the f#$ they strayed so badly. Hey, if you don’t know, it’s non-linear across ideological differences and national character (it has nothing to do with your idea of “old” or any clinician’s), and the classifications of “old man” you throw-out is the refuge a scoundrel clings.
Amanda
April 24, 2017 @ 9:04 am
I couldn’t tell you the last time I turned on mainstream radio. It’s just a joke now. Thank God for Jason Isbell, Sturgill and what’s happening in the Red Dirt scene. Good music is still being made!
albert
April 24, 2017 @ 9:06 am
”The songwriting of Dean Dillon and other legacy country songwriters regularly features involved storytelling, a moral, some sort of realization within the character of the song that helps spread enlightenment, understanding, and comfort.”
….this seems so obvious , so organic , so simple , so right , so goes-without-saying . Makes you wonder how on earth ‘bro’ found such a mindless following and has sustained it for so long . Then again , perhaps its a reflection of these mindless times …. kardashians, trump , great singers churning out crap , great actors churning out comic book movies …..ok, ok …. just my opinion ….but ……
Cindy
April 25, 2017 @ 5:32 pm
WTH does Trump have to do w any of this?
Michael Cook
April 24, 2017 @ 9:15 am
Amen brother.
Derek Sullivan
April 24, 2017 @ 9:23 am
I feel Eric Church’s latest album touched on a lot of different themes, but it has proven to not be very radio -friendly. He has one No. 1 hit (Record Year) and he tried hard with Kill a Word, leaving it as his radio single for nine months – an eternity for an established artist. I’m pretty sure Luke Bryan and FGL released four songs during that time. But radio wouldn’t play it. Nor would they play Chattanooga Lucy, Three-Year Old or Mistress Named Music if Eric released those concert favorites.
My point is an artist can break away from the radio formula, but they will pay for it. If you want to get on radio these days, it’s teenage year/young adult relationships that are either starting or ending.
And 99 percent of it sucks.
CCRR
April 24, 2017 @ 10:25 am
“Kill a Word” was a top ten hit…I heard it a ton on radio….seemed to be played a lot to me….Eric has never been a number one hit factory or anything anyways. But I get your point.
Gena R.
April 24, 2017 @ 9:27 am
“Funny that Dean Dillon mentions evolving, because that’s the line of bull many Bro-Country proponents regularly feed the public to justify why Bro-Country is okay. The problem is there’s nothing evolutionary about the static beats and simplistic writing indicative of Bro-Country. It’s devolution.”
Well put! Funny how the sound coming from the “country must evolve” crowd has mostly remained stagnant for the past decade or so. :p
As for Dean, I always liked this guy’s tunes for George (“The Chair” is still my favorite). 🙂
Doug Bowman
April 24, 2017 @ 9:33 am
I used to live around the corner from David Alan COe in Florida and he’s an ass. He is a phoney and a song thief. He’s no “country boy” from poor upbringing. He was raised in an Ohio suburb. He had no friends and tried to be a suburban bad-ass. Today he’s a joke with his skin-tight pink pants and his blonde braided wig, he looks like a carnival fool.
Tom
April 24, 2017 @ 10:05 am
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion; the only reason Coe is even mentioned here is that he hit #77 on the charts with a Dean Dillon song in 1981.
But hopefully you feel better getting that off your chest.
Kevin Smith
April 24, 2017 @ 10:04 am
Much negative can be said of Coe, paticularly these days. But he still has an impressive song catalog. As for his upbringing, he wasn’t from money and reform schools and various correctional facilities get the credit for raising him. One such place in rural ohio is about 15 minutes from where I live.
Farmer Brian
April 24, 2017 @ 6:30 pm
Good point Kevin. A lot of people forget that people in your area and mine as well since I live in the area, are coal country transplants. A lot of folks came up US 23 (about 20 miles west of me) from Columbus heading for Detroit and just ended up in our area for one reason or another. Some of the negative things people bring up about Coe could be said for some of these folks too. They didn’t have money and had to be tough (or act tough) to survive. And a few of those folks ended up in the same schools and correctional facilities. There was plenty of hard times and hard living to survive in some of these parts.
Stringbuzz
April 24, 2017 @ 10:25 am
There are awesome songs being written. There are fine song writers out there. There are plenty of songs with meaning, integrity, musicianship. You just don’t hear them played on the radio.
This is the same tired argument we have day in day out, monthly, yearly, etc.
Radio is just not the conduit for it.
Most genres of music are held hostage by the same thing, shytty radio.
It is a shame radio exposure is given to crap, but people, we are the minority, people who actually give a damn about the music they listen to and what they want from it.
For the majority of people, music is just a fast food.
karl
April 24, 2017 @ 10:27 am
We’ve all known this for quite awhile, but it’s good to get affirmation from one of the greats.
krass92
April 24, 2017 @ 10:35 am
Here is an interesting take on country music lyrics in comparison to other genres, take it as you will : “One striking difference between country lyrics and lyrics for rock, pop, or rap songs (in which it’s the default that the singer is single) is that singers are so often explicitly married or heading into (or out of) marriage, and may well have kids. Hence the large number of songs devoted to making married men feel good about being work-a-daddies bringing home the bacon. For example, the verses of Trace Adkins’s latest hit recount his hellraisin’ past, while the chorus is:
But when I bow my head tonight
There’ll be no me myself and I
Just watch my wife and kids please lord
That’s all I ask for any more.
Women get to fantasize about taming an alpha male (without, hopefully, having to shoot him, as one of Trace’s ex-wives shot him in the heart) to happily play the beta provider role. Men are reassured that if being a dad rather than a cad is good enough for an enormous slab of manliness like Adkins, it’s okay for them, too.” ( Steve Sailer: http://takimag.com/article/songs_of_our_soil/print#ixzz4fBmEZuLU)
Corncaster
April 24, 2017 @ 1:26 pm
that take is merely cynical
jessie with the long hair
April 24, 2017 @ 10:53 am
Dean Dillon has many more hits in him. He understand great songs better than 99% of the people working on music row today. The tide will turn back to great songs and when it does they will mine his catalog. Look at the career of Harlan Howard. A timeless hall of fame worthy songwriter’s career has it’s peaks and valleys. He’s probably the most recorded songwriter in country music history… or close.
Jackie
April 24, 2017 @ 11:18 am
I’m glad I was listening to country during the big Dean Dillon years. His songs were the best on the radio, without a doubt. One of my very favorites is “Is It Raining at Your House” by Vern Gosdin. A country hurtin’ song doesn’t get any better than that. I’ll always listen to anything Dean Dillon has to say!
Tempest
April 24, 2017 @ 11:47 am
I’m no authority on the subject, unless you count almost fifty years of being a country music fan. The thing that strikes me is that fans don’t appear to take control as we used to. Even twenty years ago if you loved an artist and wanted to hear their music you called up your radio station and bugged them non stop until they played your song. In an age where everyone from five to ninety literally lives with a phone in their hands, why are we as true country music fans not demanding TRUE country music. Let Luke Bryan and the others play their music. Just don’t call it country. jmo
Trigger
April 24, 2017 @ 1:36 pm
The control has been taken out of the hands of the fans, and the radio stations. Now all the radio stations are owned by three or four big companies, and playlists are designated from on high by a few individuals who are very closely tied to Music Row. Public sentiment is almost completely out of the picture when it comes to what is played on the radio.
Tempest
April 24, 2017 @ 5:59 pm
Where I live in Podunk,Ok we have locally owned and operated stations. Blessedly, they still believe in real country music. Maybe “big” radio has, as grandpa would say, ” gotten too big for their britches. Without listeners, they cease to exist.
shastacatfish
April 24, 2017 @ 7:14 pm
Not getting into the political side of things here Trigger, but would you say the dust-up over the Dixie Chicks was the last time the public really moved the needle on something in country music? I’m probably overlooking something, of course.
Trigger
April 24, 2017 @ 8:12 pm
I think the last time was Chris Stapleton. People bought Traveller by the millions to the point where the industry could no longer ignore him. It didn’t result in any major radio play, but it did result in some. Lord knows they weren’t playing him before his career went crazy after the 2015 CMA’s.
Also don’t look now, but Aaron Watson is on the radio charts at #33. It with the dubious “Outta Style,” but still. If he cracks the Top 20, that’s a story in itself.
shastacatfish
April 24, 2017 @ 9:13 pm
I’m a dope. I should have thought of Stapleton.
Amanda
April 24, 2017 @ 12:30 pm
After reading this article, I decided to look up the top 30 country songs of the week and do an assessment of each one, in my honest opinion.
Any Ol’ Barstool: 5/10
Body Like a Back Road: 0/10 (worst song)
Hometown Girl: 6/10
Dirt on My Boots: 6/10
Hurricane: 4/10
Yeah Boy: 0/10
Road Less Traveled: 7/10
Fast: 5/10
Black: 3/10
In Case You Didn’t Know: 2/10
The Weekend: 0/10
Bar at the End of the World: 2/10
How Not To: 6/10
If I Told You: 5/10
The Fighter: 1/10
Yours If You Want It: 3/10
God, Your Mama, and Me: 0/10
You Look Good: 1/10
My Girl: 0/10
Every Time I Hear That Song: 5/10
There’s a Girl: 6/10
My Old Man: 8/10
Flatliner: 0/10
Craving You: 2/10
Speak to a Girl: 5/10
Somebody Else Will: 1/10
Drinkin’ Problem: 9/10 (best song)
For Her: 0/10
No Such Thing As a Broken Heart: 3/10
Do I Make You Wanna: 4/10
What I found saddened me quite a bit. Out of 30 songs, there is only one I would consider great (Drinkin’ Problem), one good (My Old Man), quite a few decent (the ones I rated 6/10 and 7/10), a few average, a few boring, and quite a lot of god-awful garbage. I looked even farther down the list and found only two more I would consider great (Missing and Tin Man), five more good (It Ain’t My Fault, I Could Use a Love Song, Watered Down, Round Here Buzz, Makin’ Me Look Good Again), a handful of decent songs, a few average, and the rest either snooze-inducingly boring or horrifically bad. I only found 23 out of 60 songs that I would actually go back and listen to again. That’s not even half, and that is so sad. When I was a little kid back in the late 90s to early 2000s, I remember when you could turn on the radio and almost every song was actually pretty good. I miss those days.
Bill
April 24, 2017 @ 6:37 pm
Yes I admiiiiiiit I got a thinkin’ problem ( sorry I thought of that David Ball song because of drinkin’ problem!)
Donny
April 27, 2017 @ 4:45 am
Agreed, Drinkin’ Problem is an unreal song. Basically the only reason I’ll think about switching to a country station.
Timothy Evans
April 24, 2017 @ 2:03 pm
I got rice cooking in the microwave. I got a three day beard I don’t plan to shave. Yep – Dean Dillon.
the pistolero
April 24, 2017 @ 5:41 pm
That song was actually written by Darrell Scott, another really great writer.
the pistolero
April 24, 2017 @ 5:59 pm
OK. So before I go any further, let’s just get this out of the way. Dean Dillon’s catalog of songs speaks for itself, very loudly and very clearly. He absolutely has the skins on the wall to say whatever the hell he wants about country music and be listened to.
Now, with that said, there was this from 2013 (source: http://www.cmt.com/news/1717534/dean-dillon-explains-away-the-disgruntlement/ ):
“I hear a lot of disgruntlement going on with what’s going on in country music in today’s world,” he said. “There’s a box. And there’s some cowboys out there kicking the sides down on it right now. And stretching the boundaries. And pushing the limits. And putting new twists and turns on it. And they go out there and they play every night to these thousands and thousands of people. And they sing their songs to their generation. And that’s what it’s all about.”
Why is it that in 2013 it was “pushing the limits” and all that nonsense, but a mere four years later, it’s “12 years later, they’re still singing the same things”? He might as well have called it evolution back then too, just like all the chucklefucks singing and writing that shit were and are doing. (Such makes Dillon’s question “do they not evolve” all the more bitterly ironic, really.) I know that there are some things whose merit is only borne out with time, but there are also some things that we ought to be able to call out as bullshit right away. I mean, good grief, could we not have said right off the bat that Florida-Georgia Line and “Cruise” (or Luke Bryan and “That’s My Kind of Night”) were going to be a disaster for the genre?
Again, good for Dean for calling these sad sacks out, but where was he back in 2013?
Scotty J
April 24, 2017 @ 6:56 pm
I suppose he could say that the format has gone so out of balance now that it is way worse than just a few years ago when he made those comments. It’s one thing if you have a mix of styles and themes but if it is all of a similar vibe then you get where we are now.
Not sure that totally squares his past and current comments but it tries to anyway.
Trigger
April 24, 2017 @ 8:13 pm
Yeah, it creates an interesting perspective on matters, but it’s not like Dillon came out and directly defended Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line. The term “Bro-Country” hadn’t even been coined yet.
heather
April 25, 2017 @ 8:21 am
Could also be that he equated some amount of stretching the instrumentation and themes, and incorporating elements from other genres as no better or worse than other times when country music has had a new generation with a new twist. Four years later, in 2017, I think it’s fair to say that whatever stretching was happening ended up just being a stretch to a static place that not only crowded out anything not in the lane of the “hey girl”/tailgate/date night of the young, affluent, and oblivious. Nothing wrong with the tongue-in-cheek humor of “Country Man.” And, an escapist song or two, a little nostalgia, etc. But, when I try to listen to a country station now, I find myself asking, “are there any songs from the perspective of people who have jobs, and who wouldn’t dream of tearing up a farmer’s field no matter how much fun it would be to go muddin’?”
Fire at will at me for this, but, I actually liked Luke Bryan when we used to see him at local bars before the invasion of the ‘speakers go boom boom insipidness.’ He totally lost me when I learned that even he thought that line was kind of stupid, but decided to record it because he could picture college kids calling up and requesting it on radio. To me, that is the epitome of selling out – just making a “product” to maximize sales, rather than making art in the form of music. I guess either one can be entertainment. The problem is that country radio has left no room for songs for those of us who’d like music with something to say (that isn’t the exact same thing the same artist has said in their past 12 songs). Yeah yeah, I know…mommas, trains, prison, trucks, or getting drunk… But, even within that stereotype, there was room for telling different stories, and voicing different perspectives. “Guitars, Cadillacs,…” “Guitar Town,” “Girls with Guitars,” and “Teardrops on My Guitar” all have that common element but are vastly different songs.
To me, a lot of it comes back to the old saying about rock n rol being about Saturday night, and country being about Saturday night AND Sunday morning. I think country also is about those weekdays, trying to earn a living, keep a roof over your head, etc. The problem now (to bastardize Tom Hanks) is “there’s no ‘adultung’ in country music!” (adultery, yes…’adulting,’ no.) Obviously, some of the notable exceptions have been mentioned by others already.
The other riff on an old expression arises from “three chords and the truth.” Now, it seems a majority of songs are three double-repetitions of a chorus and one verse. It does come in handy at shows…even the drunkest fan hearing a song for the first time can sing along by half-way through because it’s just the same 4 lines over and over and over and over…
Just my $2 in the jukebox.
heathers
April 25, 2017 @ 8:28 am
PS – I should confess my bias, I have two of Dean’s CDs, one other album on cassette, and was in his fan club in the early 90’s in college 🙂
Actually got to see him perform live in Big Stone Gap, VA around when “Holed Up in Some Honky Tonk” was getting okay on TNN or CMT. He seemed to get a kick out of the nerdy teen girl in the audience who could sing along with every single word. Still have my fan club autographed photo and the personalized one from the show (and a t-shirt).
BO BO thinkyasuck
October 25, 2018 @ 9:46 pm
when it takes several people to write a song they are just throwing shit at each other great songs are written by one writer … Nashvile Co writing is just a scam so people can get a check ..
John Thomason
November 4, 2019 @ 3:31 pm
I think you are right. I am a lyricist myself and I love words that tell a great story.
I just wrote a song about George Jones called “George Jones Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me” It is a good song if not a great song. Love to share the lyrics with you.