Storytelling On Steroids: Inside the Revival of Country’s ‘Life Songs’

Time, it’s been said, goes by faster as people age.

But in country music, an entire lifetime can transpire in a scant three minutes. In George Birge‘s new “It Won’t Be Long” (No. 58, Country Airplay), the storyline follows the singer from a first-meeting kiss in the parking lot to a starter home, kids and a recognition of his impending senior years. In Russell Dickerson‘s “Bones” (No. 43), the protagonist sees the full sweep of a lifelong relationship, from the first glance to his future burial with his wedding ring wrapped tightly around his finger. And in Jordan Davis‘ “Next Thing You Know,” a 2023 Country Music Association (CMA) Award nominee for song of the year, a young man marries, raises some kids and lets the song — and, presumably, his life — figuratively fade to black in the end.

All of those titles put country music’s storytelling tradition on steroids, relating the life cycle of one human, or of two people’s relationship, in a compact plot. And they were all co-written by the same guy, Chase McGill, who has a special affinity for “life songs,” as he — and several other writers — call them. Since those three-minute biographies have only a small amount of space to hit the highlights, a key to making them work is to pick moments that everyone understands and paint them vividly.

“No one is so special that they’re the only person in the world that’s been through something,” McGill reasons. “If you write it like you know it and make it real, as special as you might be, someone else has been through it, too.”

One of the strengths that has fueled country’s current uptick is the genre’s ability to tell stories. Throughout the decades, country’s narratives have included Reba McEntire‘s “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” Marty Robbin‘s “El Paso,” Luke Combs‘ “Where the Wild Things Are,” Kenny Rogers‘ “The Gambler” and HARDY‘s collaboration with Lainey Wilson, “wait in the truck.”

Those plots typically detail a short time frame, maybe a few years.

But a life song maximizes that storytelling, covering all — or most — of the passage from cradle to grave, or the whole of a relationship or of one generation. 

A life song is “the ultimate challenge,” LANCO‘s Brandon Lancaster says. “To me, that’s always kind of been like the Everest of country music, if you can get to the summit and be like, ‘Wow, look at this mountaintop we just climbed in three minutes.’ “

People associate those kinds of songs with country music because they’ve seemingly always been there. In fact, while story songs were embedded in the genre from its beginning, it appears that the life song was cemented with The Browns‘ “The Three Bells,” a 1959 hit that topped both the pop and country charts. It conveyed the timeline of fictitious Jimmy Brown, using a chapel bell to mark key moments and create a template for the life song.

“Birth, marriage, death — it’s precisely that,” says songwriter Bobby Braddock (“He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “Time Marches On”).

Life songs would emerge sporadically after “The Three Bells.” Loretta Lynn‘s “Coal Miner’s Daughter”; Cal Smith‘s “Country Bumpkin”; the David Houston & Tammy Wynette  duet, “My Elusive Dreams”; and George Jones‘collaboration with Wynette on “Golden Ring” — about the journey of a wedding ring, also penned by Braddock — are all strong examples.

Kathy Mattea‘s 1989 release “Where’ve You Been,” written by husband Jon Vezner with Don Henry, seemingly ushered in the golden era of life songs after winning the CMA Award for song of the year. The ’90s featured a large number of those sweeping plotlines: Wynonna‘s “She Is His Only Need,” George Strait‘s”Check Yes or No,” Lorrie Morgan‘s”Something in Red,” Patty Loveless‘ “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye,” Tim McGraw‘s “Don’t Take the Girl” and the Braddock-penned Tracy Lawrence hit “Time Marches On.”

“It’s pretty much an entire lifetime encapsulated into about two minutes and 40 seconds,” Braddock remembers of “Time Marches On.” “That was kind of a short record to be about somebody’s life.”

Typically, the verses in those songs do the heavy biographical lifting, offering narrative details, while the chorus and/or a bridge often deliver an overarching philosophy. A repetitive hook — usually in the chorus, but sometimes embedded in the verses — keeps the story cohesive. And singable. 

“The most brilliant examples of that [repetition] can be found with comedians,” says artist-writer Skip Ewing, who co-wrote a couple of 1990s life songs: Bryan White‘s”Rebecca Lynn” and Collin Raye‘s “Love, Me.” “We love it when a comedian has a joke, it’s funny, and a little bit later on in the show, they’ll somehow bring that back into play and it connects the dots. And they might even do it a third time.”

“Love, Me,” a 1992 CMA song of the year nominee, used a letter nailed to a tree to connect the dots between a youthful verse-one elopement and the woman’s death-bed moments in verse two. The singer reveals himself to be their 15-year-old grandchild, giving the listener a sense of the couple’s decades together. But all the interim events in the story of their relationship are missing. That actually allows the listener to participate, filling in the life song’s blanks with their own experience.

“A lot of times it’s what we didn’t say,” Ewing notes. “You don’t have to tell someone much for their own mind to begin to put the story together.”

Life songs have been less prominent since the ’90s, though some certainly broke through, including Brooks & Dunn‘s “Red Dirt Road” and “Believe.” And LANCO’s Lancaster developed a greater understanding of country when he heard Randy Travis‘ 2003 single “Three Wooden Crosses” for the first time as a teen.

“I remember when that song ended,” Lancaster says, “feeling like I had just watched a three-hour movie, like I had just really gone through this journey and realizing it was in three minutes and really appreciating how that’s possible.”

LANCO’s new single — “We Grew Up Together,” released Jan. 27 — extends the current wave of life songs, taking on a larger time frame in its plot than the group tackled in its biggest hit to date, “Greatest Love Story.” Added to the current and recent recordings by Birge, Davis and Dickerson, life songs seem to be resurging as part of an ongoing ’90s country revival that counters some of the genre’s sound in the previous decade. 

“The 20-teens capitalized on this very momentary thing — ‘Right now; let’s party right now,’ ” Lancaster says. “I do think that it’s a good time [for life songs] because I think that you’re starting to see more that falls in the category of storytelling.”

Ultimately, the story that life songs tell most often is a reminder that life is short and each moment should be lived fully. McGill embodies that message even outside of his songs. His daughters are fully immersed in gymnastics, and he is devoted to them, regularly attending their practices as they live through an age that only lasts so long.

“I bought my own stadium chair and take it to gymnastics every night, and I sit in a folding chair four nights a week,” he says. “I know that I’m in the sweet spot of my life.”

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