Reba McEntire - For My Broken Heart (1991)
I can't ever listen to this CD without thinking of my friend Rick who introduced me to Reba. He was a good friend of mine in high school. Time found us drifting apart, as friendships of that nature usually do. However, in the summer of 1993, I was working in Carroll and he was back there for the summer. We started hanging out again, catching up, listening to music--and this is the CD that I remember most from that summer of the deluge.
I don't listen to Reba as much anymore--I pretty much think this was her peak--but this CD of absolutely depressing songs seemed to appeal a lot to me at the time. You can't go wrong with a country CD where songs have someone crying themselves to sleep ("For My Broken Heart") or they're on a Greyhound bound for West Virginia. ("He's In Dallas") It even contains a great cover version of "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" which was the immediate appealing song to me when I first heard the CD. Little sister don't miss when she aims her gun, indeed. Perhaps the best part of the song is how Sonny Bono turned it down for Cher on the pretense that it would offend everybody in the Southern U.S.--memo to Cher: great idea for your next CD.
The last song, "If I Had Only Known," is probably the most understated of all the songs, and speaks to the regret and sorrow that accompanies not knowing that you weren't ever going to see a person again, or talk to them again. While it seems a bit cliched, there's a grain of truth in there. It reminds me of the Vietnam scene in Forrest Gump--"If I had known that this was the last time me and Bubba was gonna talk, I'd have thought of something better to say." Probably not what they were after, but similar nonetheless.
On a final note, you don't listen to this CD when you're even remotely depressed. It'll prolong the misery. Seriously.
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