Post-Millennial Classic: “Question,” an Achingly Romantic Slow One by Old 97’s

They are unusual in they’ve consisted of the same four members since their very first record some 30 years ago. And, for much of their long, impressive career, the Dallas-based Old 97’s have trafficked in a particularly raucous brand of roots music indebted to a wide range of influences.

But they’ve also slowed it down now and again, perhaps most notably on their 2001 song “Question.” It was such a change of pace that lead singer Rhett Miller, who wrote the track, almost thought it inappropriate to what the band was doing. Here’s how the Old 97’s posed this memorable “Question.”

Recovering the Satellite

By 2001, Old 97’s had already established themselves as an incredible success story, one that rose from local bar-band status to major-label recording artists. They were generally pegged as alt-country, perhaps more because of their Dallas background than the type of music they played.

As they developed throughout the ’90s, their audience grew and critical acclaim widened for the band. They started to branch out in the styles of music they incorporated. When it came to Satellite Rides in 2001, they leaned a bit more into the power pop tendencies shown by groups like Cheap Trick.

“Question” did not gibe at all with that style. Rhett Miller explained in an interview with Songwriters on Process the song came from a mixture of the story of a friend’s engagement and his own developing relationship with the woman he would eventually marry:

“I wrote “Question” at 3 a.m. in London. I was there visiting my sister, and it was also the first week I had spent with Erica. We were platonic at that time and were hanging out with a couple who had just gotten engaged, and it was a really cute story. I tried to distill their story in as simple a way as possible.”

Because the song was a soft acoustic number, Miller wasn’t even planning on submitting it to the rest of his group (Ken Bethea, Murry Hammond, and Philip Peeples). But Wally Gagel, who was producing the album, heard Miller noodling around with it in the studio and asked Miller to play it for him. The song was recorded on the spot, and it turned into one of the band’s most beloved songs.

What is the Meaning of “Question”?

Miller does an incredible job with “Question,” suggesting a lot without openly telling us anything. The words “marriage” or “engagement” never appear, but we can tell what the “Question” is just from the hints he leaves behind. In the first verse, the girl to whom the guy is about to propose seems a bit agitated and anguished, maybe even standoffish in terms of her body language. She wonders, Why was he so nervous?

In the second verse, the mood suddenly changes. Miller doesn’t show us the actual “Will you marry me?” part, but instead checks back into the story in the immediate aftermath. She had no idea, he sings. She started to cry / She said in a good way. Quite the contrast to the first verse.

Miller ties it all together in the chorus, which is when he changes the perspective from the third person to the first. That’s when we can guess the songwriter is starting to think about the promise of his own new relationship. Someday somebody’s gonna ask you / A question that you should say yes to / Once in your life.

Maybe tonight I got a question for you, Miller concludes. “Question” showed Old ’97s could change up their approach a smidge and still deliver the goods. And it also captures the emotions attached to one of the biggest events in anyone’s life without including the actual moment of truth.

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Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images