Its title may have been inspired by the term “seven-year itch,” which had its origins in everything from skin problems to the Marilyn Monroe movie of the same name, the film about mid-life crises and marital woes best known for the sex icon’s skirt being blown up. With a subject somewhat related to that movie’s theme, the title track of Rosanne Cash’s 1981 album Seven Year Ache helped open the door for a new generation of artists and writers in the country genre.
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The song’s lyrics weren’t as cut and dried as most country lyrics, but were somewhat cryptic and held an obvious meaning for some listeners, while inviting subjective interpretation for others. With a structure of two verses, a chorus, two more verses and a chorus that repeats twice, the song seems to be about a man who is making the rounds of the local bars to deal with his dissatisfaction with his relationship, or maybe with himself: “Tell me you’re trying to cure a seven year ache/ See what else your old heart can take/ The boys say,“When is he gonna give us some room”/ The girls say, “God I hope he comes back soon.” But some believe that it could also be about the author herself and some of what she was going through at that point in her young life.
In her 2010 biography Composed, Cash recounted how the album and the title song changed her life and introduced her to the realities of the music industry as the child of a star — Johnny Cash, of course. “I was twenty-four years old when we made Seven Year Ache, and I was completely unprepared for the attention it would attract or the work expected of me as a result … The first single was the title song — probably the best song I had written up to that point — and it was a huge hit, reaching number one in the country charts the week of my twenty-fifth birthday and crossing over to the pop charts, where it reached number 22.”
Cash wasn’t the first female country artist to write her own successful single; Loretta Lynn had broken that wall down in the 1960s, and Gail Davies had not only done the same but had become the first woman to produce a successful album on Music Row. But their material, like most country material, was more straightforward and left less room for the imagination. “Seven Year Ache,” and its not-so-country production, helped change the tone of country music in the 1980s. This wasn’t Nashville country music, but California country, as Cash was raised primarily in the West, and the album, produced by then-husband Rodney Crowell, was recorded mostly in Los Angeles.
While the song “Seven Year Ache” was written solely by Cash, most of the album it came from featured the work of other writers like Sonny Curtis and Tom Petty. Cash was still a developing writer and artist in those days, and, unlike many of that era, continues to be active and successful today. “Seven Year Ache” started it all for her in terms of popular acclaim, and introduced Music Row to a slightly different take on lyric writing.
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