On this day (January 28) in 1989, Randy Travis topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart with “Deeper Than the Holler.” It was his sixth consecutive No. 1 single, and his eighth overall.
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Travis had a golden baritone voice. However, that’s not the only thing that made him so popular with country music fans. He knew how to write and choose songs that his listeners could relate to. “Deeper Than the Holler,” for instance, is a perfect example of how he found songs aimed directly at the rural working class.
The song immediately dismisses “city singers” who talk about their love being deeper than the ocean or higher than the stars. Next, the lyrics note that the ocean is salty and the stars fall. Then, the first chorus introduces rural equivalents for all of those widely-used tropes. More importantly, Travis’ delivery makes every syllable believable. As a result, this is still hailed as one of country music’s greatest love songs more than three decades later.
Randy Travis Had Access to One of the Best Songwriting Teams in Nashville
Randy Travis was a songwriter, but he didn’t write major hits like “Deeper Than the Holler.” That was the two-man team of Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz.
They wrote “Deeper Than the Holler,” “Forever and Ever, Amen,” and “On the Other Hand,” all of which were No. 1 singles for Travis. The pair also wrote “When You Say Nothing at All” and “You Again,” which were No. 1 singles for Keith Whitley and the Forester Sisters, respectively. In short, they worked well together.
According to Songfacts, Overstreet and Schlitz took inspiration from the Motown hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” for the song. Additionally, Schlitz’s wife inspired a line from the song. She was an actress and a fan of Broadway musicals. Schlitz added the line “From the back roads to the Broadway shows with a million miles between,” with her in mind.
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