Country music is known for its story songs. It’s what the genre has been celebrating for decades. But some of the stories turn out completely unexpected. We found five country songs with a shocking twist that nobody saw coming.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Church Bells” by Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood’s “Church Bells“, from her 2016 Storyteller album, sounds innocent enough. Brett James, Hillary Lindsey, and Zach Crowell penned the song, which says, “She could hear those church bells ringin’, ringin’ / And up in the loft, that whole choir singin’, singin’ / Fold your hands and close your eyes / Yeah, it’s all gonna be alright / And just listen to the church bells ringin‘.”
But the song, about a woman in an abusive relationship with her rich husband, takes a shocking twist. It happens when Underwood sings, “Jenny slipped somethin’ in his Tennessee whiskey / No law man was ever gonna find / And how he died is still a mystery / But he hit a woman for the very last time.”
“The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” by Reba McEntire
All of Reba McEntire’s “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” is like a movie. The song, out in 1991, is on her For My Broken Heart album. But it’s not until later that the little sister reveals the truth. She is the one who committed murder, and it wasn’t the person who was hanged.
“Well, they hung my brother before I could say / The tracks he saw while on his way / To Andy’s house and back that night were mine,” McEntire sings. “And his cheating wife had never left town / That’s one body that’ll never be found You see little sister don’t miss when she aims her gun.”
Not surprisingly, McEntire also plays the sister who fired the deadly shot in the video.
“Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss
Jon Randall and Bill Anderson penned “Whiskey Lullaby,” released by Paisley in 2004 on his Mud On The Tires project. The song seems to be about a man who drinks himself to death when he can’t be with the woman he loves.
Towards the end of the song, it comes out that the woman, unable to live with the guilt of his death, also takes her own life.
The song says, “She finally drank her pain away little at a time / But she never could get drunk enough to get him of her mind / Until the night / She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger / And finally drank away his memory / Life is short but this time it was bigger / Than the strength she had to get up off her knees.”
Rick Schroder stars in the video, which is more than six minutes long.
“Over You” by Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert released “Over You” in 2012, from her Revolution record. Written by Lambert and her former husband, Blake Shelton, it was inspired by the loss of Shelton’s brother. Richie was killed in a car crash in 1990.
“Over You” seems like a song about lost love, until the bridge. It’s towards the end of the song when Lambert sings, “It really sinks in, you know / When I see it in stone / ‘Cause you went away / How dare you? / I miss you / They say I’ll be OK / But I’m not going to / Ever get over you.”
The title is from something Shelton’s father once said.
“‘You don’t ever get over it. … The hurt passes, but you don’t ever get over it,” Lambert recalls him saying (via Wide Open Country).
Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images
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