#5 Worst Country Song of the 1990’s
On 07-31-2009
at 8:03 pm
How much care goes into sculpting the perfect novelty song? I guess you just got to have a knack for it. Throughout country music’s time-line, the novelty song has played an integral part in its evolution(or devolution?). Songs like Little Jimmy Dickens’ “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose” or Johnny Cash’s “Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart” have proven that country music is not all frowns. However, there has been some that have totally missed the mark, and an example of this would be Diamond Rio’s #16 hit “Bubba Hyde.” The guys show off flawless vocals, and great instrumentation. They have always been able to shred. And, that is how far this song goes. The goal of the novelty song is to make one smile, not to create a feeling of disdain. This song has a Dane Cook like quality, in which, it tries too hard to be funny. If he actually turned out to be someone cool, like a honky tonk version of Arthur Fonzarelli, maybe this song might have had a redeeming quality, but if anyone wore Hai Karate, seriously, would this be someone we would want to hang out with? Also, the protagonist is not a very likable character. I picture a 40-something, dancing by himself on a dance floor full of 20 year old girls who just feel uncomfortable. He leads the kind of secret life that you would hear about on America’s Most Wanted(with your help we can catch this Elvis wannabe, and put him behind bars where he belongs).
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better melodically. It resembles the dredge that country music was churning out during the early 1990’s to mid 90’s. I am not saying all of it was dredge, but it sounds like they super-imposed the lyrics to the structure of Doug Stone’s “A Jukebox and a Country Song.” “Bubba Hyde’s” writers Wiseman and Nelson must have thought, “Hey, since, Stone had that ‘jukebox’ song and Joe Diffie had “Prop Me Up Beside The Jukebox,” then dadblamit we can write a novelty song, too.” Good job guys, you succeeded and failed at the same time.
I wasn’t too impressed with this song, either. Diamond Rio had much better songs in their catalog during the 1990s — “Meet in the Middle,” “Love a Little Stronger,” “How Your Love Makes Me Feel” and “Unbelievable,” to name a few. And one of their all-time best songs I had played at my dad’s funeral: 2001’s “One More Day.” This is how one needs to view Diamond Rio — not with a semi-hokey “Bubba Hyde.” Bubba’s been around too much as country music’s scapegoat lately.