The George Strait Hit You Didn’t Know John Prine Wrote

Anything George Strait touches becomes his, even if it originally did not belong to him. That being said, George Strait has covered a plethora of other artists’ songs. And consequently, he has overshadowed their versions and claimed it as his own time and time again. One artist he incidentally did this to is the lyrical genius John Prine.

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Musically, George Strait and John Prine have little in common other than genre. Strait stuns the crowd with his showmanship and Prine sedates his audience with his poignant lyrics. Despite their differences, George Strait took a liking to John Prine’s underrated classic “I Just Want To Dance With You”.

How George Strait Acquired John Prine’s Song

In an excerpt from the book Behind the Boards: Nashville, record producer Tony Brown once told the story of how George Strait discovered John Prine’s obscure country music dance hit.

“I would have never believed that George [Strait] would cut a John Prine song,” said Brown. “But when I heard that one, I knew I had to play it for him. Well, when he finished listening to it, the first thing he did was look up at me and I thought he was going to say ‘What were you thinking?’ and that’s what he did. So I told him, ‘I think this is a hit for you, man.’ So he said, ‘Okay, I like it.’”

Even though Strait loved Prine’s song, he did want to make some changes to certain lines within the chorus. That being said, Strait allegedly asked Brown, “Do you think John Prine would mind if I used the same line in both choruses?” Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was to ask Prine himself.

Brown initially asked John Prine’s manager, who gave him a simple ‘no’. However, when he asked Prine himself, Prine replied, “Hell yeah man! Whatever he wants to sing, I want a George Strait cut!”

Thanks to John Prine’s blessing, George Strait and Tony Brown recorded, produced, and released “I Just Want To Dance With You” in 1998. Following the song’s release, Strait’s cover of the song peaked at no. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

For context, John Prine only has one no. 1 hit. Strait has a whopping total of 60, but he would only have 59 if it wasn’t for one of country music’s finest songwriters.

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