3 Dean Dillon Songs That Helped Make George Strait a Superstar

There is a saying in country music that it all begins with a song, a saying that has proven true for George Strait. Although Strait has recorded songs by numerous writers, it’s Dean Dillon who has penned a lot of Strait’s biggest hits. We found three songs written by Dean Dillon that helped make George Strait a superstar.

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“Unwound”

“Unwound” is Strait’s first single, which also became his first hit on the radio. Written by Dillon, along with Frank Dycus, the song is on Strait’s freshman Strait Country album. Interestingly, “Unwound” wasn’t written for Strait, who was a newcomer at the time, but instead for Johnny Paycheck.

According to The Boot, Dillon and Dycus ran into Strait’s producer, Blake Mevis, who asked for songs for Strait.

“He rolled his window down and said, ‘Hey, man, I got to cut this new kid from Texas. Y’all got any songs?’” Dillon recounts. “I said, ‘We’ve always got songs. As a matter of fact, we’ve got a song we were gonna pitch to Johnny Paycheck, but he’s in jail, so we’ll give it to you.’”

“Ocean Front Property”

When people think of a classic George Strait song, it’s often “Ocean Front Property” that comes to mind. Dillon penned the song with Hank Cochran and Royce Porter, as the title track of Strait’s seventh studio album.

The song is one of Strait’s many No. 1 hits, even though Dillon doesn’t like the song.

“I thought it was horrible,” Dillon tells Songfacts. “I didn’t like to write funny songs. That didn’t do anything for me. If anything, I tend to delve in the dark side of life more than I did the funny side of it. Even after we were done with it, I thought, ‘Man, this is junk,’ I thought it was hokey, and I didn’t know if people’d get it or not.”

“The Chair”

There might not be a more beloved George Strait song than “The Chair“. Dillon also penned this song with Cochran, which Strait includes on his 1985 Something Special record. One of Strait’s biggest hits, Dillon says the song was written in almost record time.

“It was four in the morning, and I don’t know what happened,” Dillon recalls to Texas Monthly. “But Hank sat down in a chair across from me, and I looked at him, picked up the guitar, struck a G chord, and started singing, ‘Well, excuse me, but I think you’ve got my chair.’ And he said, ‘Have you written that song?’ I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Well, we’re about to.’ And 45 minutes later, we’d written ‘The Chair’.”

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