My 100 Favorite Charted Country Songs: Amarillo By Morning

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Howdy from an unusual place for me: my dining room table! I’m waiting on the HVAC company to arrive and do the semi-annual maintenance on my system and change the filter. While I wait for them I’ll give you another song on the list of my 100 favorite songs that made the Billboard country music charts. Amarillo By Morning - George Strait Probably no surprise here (or anywhere on this list, save for one song ). King George has kept country sounding country amid all the crock, hick-hop, bro-co, and whatever that is that Beyoncé did. This song was written by Terry Stafford, who recorded it first. Stafford’s one big claim to fame as a singer was “Suspicion” in 1964, where he sounded so much like Elvis that Elvis covered the song and couldn’t beat him on the chart. (He co-wrote another song that’ll be along on this list.) There’s no pick-up truck, but it does have rodeo, which is better than pick-up trucks for country stereotypes. (For those of you wondering about “looking for eight when they pull that gate,” that’s a reference to riding a bull in a rodeo. You have to stay on it for eight seconds. No, I don’t know how they came up with that length of time, but it is what it is.) Add lamenting the missing love (“lost my wife and a girlfriend somewhere along the way”) and the independence (“I ain’t got a dime but what I’ve got is mine”), and you have a pretty darn good country song. Add George Strait to it and it elevates it to a great country song. Amarillo By Morning Written by Terry Stafford and Paul Fraser Recorded by George Strait From Strait From the Heart, 1983 Peak chart position: #4 Today’s rock song: “Ain’t Even Done With the Night” Everything that I’ve got is just what I’ve got on: