The year 1988 was one of the best years in country music. The year had so many great hits that it’s hard to remember all of them. The following four country songs were released in 1988, and in spite of their success, even diehard country music fans have forgotten about them.
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“Honky Tonk Moon” by Randy Travis
Randy Travis includes “Honky Tonk Moon” on his third album, Old 8X10. Written by Dennis O’Rourke, the song became Travis’s eighth consecutive No. 1 hit.
“Honky Tonk Moon” begins with, “Dirt road in the twilight, woods so cool and dark / Up ahead pale neon, somewhere a dog barks / Honky tonk moon / Keeps shining on my baby and me / Breaking up the pool balls, chalking up the cues / Juke box pumping softly, lazy summer blues / Honky tonk moon.”
Although “Honky Tonk Moon” landed at the top of the charts, it falls between “I Told You So” and “Deeper Than The Holler”, songs that were also big hits for Travis, making “Honky Tonk Moon” not as memorable as some of his other hits.
“Baby Blue” by George Strait
“Baby Blue” is on George Strait’s If You Ain’t Lovin’ You Ain’t Livin’ record. Written by Aaron Barker, the song is about longing for a relationship that ended.
“Baby Blue” says, “Baby blue was the color of her eyes / Baby blue like the Colorado skies / Like a breath of spring, she came and left / And I still don’t know why / So here’s to you and whoever holds my baby blue tonight.”
One of Strait’s 60 No. 1 singles, it isn’t as big as some of his other hits. Still, it is a song that changed everything for Barker.
“I was making about 40 bucks a day selling oranges off of a farm road for a couple of seasons, and things were getting really tight,” Barker recalls to The Tennessean. “And I was pretty worried. I had a wife and a kid, and a house. And here comes this call from — at the time I’d never heard of him, but it was Erv Woolsey, and he left a message. He said, ‘Call me. George Strait wants to record one of your songs.’”
“Sunday Kind Of Love” by Reba McEntire
Reba McEntire’s “Sunday Kind Of Love” is on her Reba album, also out in 1988. The song became a Top 5 hit for McEntire, although she is far from the first person to record it.
Written by Barbara Belle, Anita Leonard, Stan Rhodes, and Louis Prima, the song was first released in 1946. In the almost four decades between its original release and McEntire’s release, several other artists also recorded “Sunday Kind Of Love”, including Jo Stafford, Ella Fitzgerald, and Etta James, among others.
“I want a Sunday kind of love,” the song says. “A love to last past Saturday night / And I’d like to know / It’s more than love at first sight / I want a Sunday kind of love.”
“Addicted” by Dan Seals
Dan Seals released “Addicted” in 1988, on his Rage On album. Before Seals released it, Cheryl Wheeler, who wrote the song, recorded it in 1986.
But it’s Seals who had a big hit with the song, becoming his eighth No. 1 single. “Addicted” says, “She says she feels like she’s addicted to a real bad thing / Always sitting, waiting, wondering if the phone will ring / She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string.” A successful single for Seals, it still wasn’t as big as “Bop”, “Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)”, and some of his other singles.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
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