Country music is built on songs that evoke strong emotions. While the genre is full of happy songs and sweet love songs, there are also plenty of sad country songs. We uncover three of the saddest country songs ever, which all came out in the last 10 years.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Marry Me” by Thomas Rhett
“Marry Me” is on Thomas Rhett’s third studio album, Life Changes. Written by Rhett, along with Jesse Frasure, Ashley Gorley, and Shane McAnally, the song is about a man who realizes too late that he never told a woman how he feels when he attends her wedding.
“Marry Me” says, “I’ll wear my black suit, black tie, hide out in the back / I’ll do a strong shot of whiskey straight out the flask / I’ll try to make it through without cryin’ so nobody sees / Yeah, she wanna get married / But she don’t wanna marry me.“
Rhett now says the song could have been autobiographical if he hadn’t married Lauren Akins.
“[I] would have watched her marry somebody else,” Rhett tells The Boot. “I probably wouldn’t have been quite as sad as the guy in the music video for the song, but it would definitely still have wrecked me.”
“You Should Be Here” by Cole Swindell
Cole Swindell released “You Should Be Here” in 2015 as the title track of his sophomore album. Swindell wrote the song with Ashley Gorley about the loss of Swindell’s own father.
“You Should Be Here” says, “You should be here / Standing with your arm around me here / Cuttin’ up crackin’ a cold beer / Sayin’ cheers / Hey y’all, it’s sure been a good year / It’s one of those moments / That’s got your name written all over it / And you know that if I had just one wish / It’d be that you didn’t have to miss this / You should be here.”
The video for “You Should Be Here” begins with footage of Swindell talking to his father on the phone, shortly before he passed away. It concludes with Swindell visiting his father’s grave.
“Never Wanted To Be That Girl” by Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde
The heartache of infidelity is crystal clear in “Never Wanted To Be That Girl“. Released by Carly Pearce on her 29: Written In Stone album, Pearce sings the song with Ashley McBryde. The two also wrote the song together, along with McAnally.
“Never Wanted To Be That Girl” is from the perspective of both the wife and the woman who is unintentionally causing the affair. The song says, “I never wanted to be that girl / I never wanted to hate myself / I thought this kind of lonely only happens to somebody else / Being the other one when there’s another one / God, this feels like hell / I thought I knew who I was, but it’s gettin’ hard to tell / I never wanted to be that girl.”
Photo by Ollie Millington/Redferns
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