4 Country No. 1 Hits From 1975 That Still Feel Classic

From the sound of pedal steel to the jukebox vocals, classic runs through these No. 1 hits from 1975. Here are a few songs that really feel like good, old country music.

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“She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Doubles)” by Gary Stewart

The honky-tonk sound on this song just feels so classic. Not to mention, the way Gary Stewart sings that chorus hook is just infectious.

She’s actin’ single
I’m drinkin’ doubles
I hide my pain
I drown my troubles
My heart is breaking
Like the tiny bubbles
She’s actin’ single
I’m drinkin’ doubles.

“Rhinestone Cowboy” by Glen Campbell

This Glen Campbell hit song tells of a country singer’s struggle to make it in the music business. As Campbell revealed in an interview, he took much of the inspiration for this song from his own experiences of trying to make it.

“The idea for the song was also a crying out of myself,” he explained. “It was the spirit of a bunch of us on Broadway where I started out—Neil Diamond, Tony Orlando—we all had dreams of making it.”

“Thank God I’m A Country Boy” by John Denver

In this two-stepping tune, John Denver sings about life on the farm, which is a little ironic, especially because he actually grew up in the southwest.

“Well, a simple kinda life never did me no harm / A raisin’ me a family and workin’ on the farm / My days are all filled with an easy country charm / Thank God I’m a country boy.”

“The Door” by George Jones

“The Door” is sung from the perspective of an ex-soldier, who reveals that nothing he’s ever experienced is quite as hurtful as the sound of “the closing of the door” when his love left him. This song was a No. 1, of course. But as Billy Sherrill, one of the song’s writers, shared, it probably could have been even bigger than it was.

“I don’t think it quite got to the whole entire public because of the type of song that it was,” he admitted in the liner notes of Jones’ Anniversary – 10 Years Of Hits. “It was a number one song, but…a lot of it was about the [Vietnam] war… It was the type of song people didn’t wanna really talk about that much.”

Photo by: David Redfern/Redferns