Reba McEntire Inspired One of Brooks & Dunn’s Biggest Hits

In 2007, Brooks & Dunn released Cowboy Town, their eleventh studio album.  The record includes “Cowgirls Don’t Cry”, a song Ronnie Dunn wrote with Terry McBride. The duo, which also includes Kix Brooks, sings “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” with Reba McEntire, a fitting collaboration since it’s McEntire who inspired the song.

“I saw it—the title—on a T-shirt at the Iowa State Fair,” Dunn recalls. “Terry McBride and I were on the bus, and I started talking about it. … And we started talking about Reba and hearing her talk about how she grew up, how rough she thought her dad was on her in her rodeo days. We wrote it and sent the lyrics to her that night.”

The chorus says, “Cowgirls don’t cry / Ride, baby, ride / Lessons in life are going to show you in time / Soon enough you’re going to know why / It’s going to hurt every now and then / If you fall get back on again / Cowgirls don’t cry.”

How Reba McEntire Joined Brooks & Dunn on “Cowgirls Don’t Cry”

After Dunn and McBride wrote “Cowgirls Don’t Cry”, McEntire wanted to record the song if Brooks & Dunn decided not to record it themselves.

“She e-mailed me back about every other week going, ‘Are you gonna cut that song? ‘Cause if not, I am!’” Dunn remembers. “So we finally called a truce, and we’re doing it together.”

If anyone knows the cowgirl way of life, it’s McEntire. She grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma, instilling in her the work ethic she still has today.

“The cowgirl thing is a theme they learn early on, to tough it out,” Dunn explains. “It applies to horses so much with the principles you have to learn and the discipline you have to learn to keep the horses up. You fall off the horse, you get up. You don’t cry, or you cry a few times at first, and you get over it.”

The final verse of “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” says, “Phone rang early one morning / Her momma’s voice, she’d been crying / Said it’s your daddy, you need to come home / This is it, I think he’s dying / She laid the phone down by his head / The last words that he said / Cowgirl don’t cry / Ride, baby, ride.”

“They’re tough girls, but they’re sensitive, too,” Dunn says. “They’re women at the same time. They learn through the process to curb those emotions. It’s good to draw them out if you can. That’s what the last verse of ‘Cowgirls Don’t Cry’ is about: You’re going to cry whether you want to or not.”

“Cowgirls Don’t Cry” became Brooks & Dunn’s final Top 5 single.

Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage