How a Shag Carpet Helped Inspire George Strait’s First No. 1 Single

In 1982, George Strait celebrated his first No.1 hit, with “Fool Hearted Memory“. His fourth single, “Fool Hearted Memory” is the first song released from Strait’s sophomore Strait From The Heart album.

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The song, written by Byron Hill and Blake Mevis, became the first of 60 chart-topping singles that Strait has had throughout his historic career. But at the time, the two songwriters were just trying to write a country hit, one that would also work for the film The Soldier.

When Hill and Mevis got together to write, Hill was a writer for ATV Music.

“They connected me with Blake, who was at the time a young producer producing George at MCA,” Hill tells The Tennessean. “So it sort of made sense. We got together, and we had to write something that would fit the movie and make it into the soundtrack album.”

The Line in George Strait’s “Fool Hearted Memory” That Was Inspired by a Shag Carpet

In “Fool Hearted Memory”, the song says, “She was his girl, his only world / That string of pearls that slipped away / A thousand dimes, a thousand times / He doesn’t mind what they say.”

“We wrote in a little upstairs room there,” Hill recounts. “I remember there was shag carpet on the floor. And that line, ‘That string of pearls that slipped away,’ when we hit that line, I thought, ‘Man, if they were in this shag carpet, you’d never find them.’”

“Fool Hearted Memory” might have never been released to radio if not for a contingency given to the record company by the producers of The Soldier.

“The studio wanted a major label artist to record the song ad perform it in the movie,” Hill reveals (via Songfacts). “And they would only commit to the song if it was released as a single.”

Of course, Strait went on to release dozens more songs throughout his career. Still, there is something special about “Fool Hearted Memory”, and not just because it’s his first No.1 single.

“A lot of people do say still that it’s one of their favorite George Strait songs,” Hill concedes. “And also, that intro, everyone knows what it is when it happens. I think that little fiddle kickoff has filled a lot of dance floors through the years.”

Hill couldn’t have predicted the success of “Fool Hearted Memory”. But he did know right away it was something special for Strait.

“Blake invited me to the studio the next week and I got to hear the final product,” Hill says. “How rare is that? You write something and it gets recorded almost right away. … The song ended up being bigger than the movie, too.”

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