There’s nothing like a sad 90s country song. Here are a few heartbreak hits with lyrics that’ll break your heart, if somebody else didn’t do it already.
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“Don’t Take The Girl” by Tim McGraw
The plot twist in this song hurts like no other. In the first part of “Don’t Take The Girl,” Tim McGraw tells the classic tale of a little boy spending time alone with his dad at the fishing pole. A little girl tries to join them, and the boy is reluctant at first, telling him, “Take any boy in the world / Daddy, please, don’t take the girl.” His father lovingly warns him that one day, he won’t feel that way. Fifteen years later, when that same boy is about to lose his wife (the little girl) in childbirth, he prays a certain prayer.
“I’ll gladly take her place if you’ll let me / Make this my last request / Take me out of this world / God, please, don’t take the girl.”
“I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt
If you’re looking for a song that will just absolutely rip your heart out, this is it. Released in 1991, Bonnie Raitt tells the classic, yet unfortunate tale of unrequited love with “I Can’t Make You Love Me”. I mean wow, this chorus is just something else.
‘”Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t / You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t / Here in the dark, in these final hours / I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power / But you won’t, no you won’t / ‘Cause I can’t make you love me, if you don’t.”
Although this song definitely blends genres, it was written by country writers Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, and you can totally tell.
“I Still Believe In You” by Vince Gill
This song was actually inspired by a real fight Vince Gill had with his first wife. Gill was married to Janis Oliver for 17 years, until their divorce in 1997.
In the first verse, Gill sings, “Everybody wants a little piece of my time / But still I put you at the end of the line.” Apparently, this is pretty accurate to how Janis felt about his career when the song was written.
Cowriter John Barlow Jarvis spoke in an interview, as reported by SongFacts, about how the tune came to be. “We finally booked an appointment on a Sunday at my house,” Jarvis explained. “[Gill] forgot to tell his wife, and they had a bit of a spat about it, apparently. So he was in the mood to write a make-up song. I pretty much had the music idea fleshed out before he got there.”
Photo by: Paul Natkin/WireImage
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