3 Songs That Will Get Any Non-Listener Excited About Country Music

Even if you’re more of a pop music fan, listen to any of these country music hits and you’ll be hooked.

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“Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers

Written by the Bee Gees and released in 1963, this song was huge for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. A pop-country crossover hit, it’s obvious this one wouldn’t be what it is without Parton’s voice. However, the “9 to 5” singer almost wasn’t on the track.

“So I had a recording studio in LA at the time,” Rogers told Dan Rather of the song. “And we I sang that song for four days and I finally just said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, ‘I swear it’s like an epiphany. We need Dolly Parton.’”

Ironically, Parton happened to be in the same studio as Rogers at the same time that day.

He continued, “Well, as only Dolly can do, she marched in the room and once she came in, the song was never the same. I mean, it was really that different when she sang with me than when I sang it by myself.”

Little did they know, “Islands In The Stream” would be the first of many duets they would do.

“Crazy” by Patsy Cline

“Crazy” is just as much pop as it is country, so it’s hard not to love it. Even if you aren’t a country music fan, you’ll be singing along with Cline in no time.

The song was actually discovered for Cline by her husband, Charlie Dick, who had originally heard Willie Nelson sing it on a jukebox. After that, he kept Cline up for “half the night” listening to it.

“She didn’t think too much of the song,” Dick told NPR. “She just didn’t even want to hear Willie Nelson’s name mentioned. And then Hank Cochran, who was a song plugger for the publishing company Willie was writing for, when he came over to bring this tape of ‘Crazy’ that he thought was so good — Willie actually sat in the car; he didn’t come in the house, ’cause I’d told him what Patsy said about me keeping her up all night. So he waited outside. He didn’t want to lose a sale.”

Unbeknownst to Cline at the time, “Crazy” would become her biggest hit.

“Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver

Even if you don’t listen to country music, you probably know this song. “Take Me Home Country Roads” was John Denver’s biggest hit, and it still gets stuck in our heads, decades after its release. Ironically, though, this one was actually written about a back road in Maryland, not a country road.

Photo by: TV Times via Getty Images