Lee Ann Womack — “I Hope You Dance”

60 Songs That Explain the '90s

Host Rob Harvilla reflects on the emotional resonance of LeAnn Womack's 'I Hope You Dance' by weaving together personal nostalgia and a deep

Key takeaways

• LeAnn Womack's 'I Hope You Dance' is analyzed as a masterclass in providing hope through song without making false promises.
• The host discusses the transition of Dolly Parton from a late-night comedy punchline to a universally revered musical and humanitarian icon.

Main topics

• LeAnn Womack's musical career
• The legacy of Dolly Parton

Notable quotes

She did not have Patsy Cline's range... What she had was something different... There was a unique pain in her voice.

Conclusion

A moving tribute to the enduring power of sincere songwriting and the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:07) Hello, friends. A quick note to say that 60 Songs is now available on YouTube. We made it. Success. That was easy. You can now watch full episodes of this show on YouTube, and you can also check out our new social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok, all using the name 60 Songs that explain the 90s. We have heard your cries of despair and confusion, and we have therefore embraced... various popular online platforms. So watch us on YouTube. Check us out on TikTok and Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter still under the name Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-L-A, but maybe stay out of it. I don't know. We'll put all the links for these in the episode description as well. Thanks for listening and or watching, and we'll see you on the internet. Speaker 2 (0:58) This episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s is presented to you by Nintendo. Some things stick around for a reason. A great song, a favorite movie, a game everyone wants another turn at. The Nintendo Switch 2 system fits right into that tradition. With two controllers included in games like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bonanza, and EA Sports FC 26, there's something for every age and every mood. Whether you're at home or on the go, it's easy to keep the good stuff in rotation. Learn more at Nintendo.com slash Nintendo Switch 2. Games and systems sold separately. Games rated E to E10+. Speaker 2 (1:43) So my weekend curfew as a teenager is midnight, which means I saunter triumphantly through our front door somewhere between 11.58 p.m. and 12.25 a.m. I'm very obedient and punctual. I am reasonably obedient and punctual. I think people familiar with this show know that I'm great with deadlines, actually. And so I always make it home by curfew. basically. And my dad's always just chilling in the living room, waiting up for me. Dad's watching a movie on TV. And because this is the 90s, back when you just got to watch whatever movies on TV, and they play the same movies on TV all the time. Consequently, it feels as though every night when I come home, my dad is watching the exact same movie on TV. And because I always get home on time, basically, my dad is often watching the exact same part of that movie on TV. And so I get home and I sit with my dad and together we watch the end of that one movie hundreds of times. Speaker 3 (2:52) It's 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Speaker 2 (3:01) Hit Speaker 3 (3:01) it. Speaker 2 (3:01) We watched the end of The Blues Brothers together. My father and I. The Blues Brothers, 1980, the Saturday Night Live spinoff starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the titular roles, directed by John Landis, a star-studded and unexpectedly action-packed... musical comedy. That was a famous Blues Brothers line just now. But if you're watching, dig the celestial light shining outside the rear car window behind the titular Blues Brothers as they sit in the Bluesmobile, their iconic beat-up 1974 Dodge Monaco sedan. Better cinematography and attention to detail in this movie than the circumstances would seem to demand. Great movie. Sneaky great. Yeah, I walk through the door most weekend nights with 20 minutes left in the Blues Brothers, right when Dan Aykroyd says all that stuff. It's 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. And from there, the remaining 20 minutes of this movie is a giant, goofy slapstick car chase. Best part is when John Candy's in a police car. chasing the Blues Brothers and John Candy's police car jumps a little hill and flies through the air and whimsically crash lands into a moving semi truck. If you're not watching this, it's fine. Feel free to just enjoy the car chase sounds and also the jovial medium raucous blues music that is playing in the background pretty much the entire time. Speaker 2 (4:50) R.I.P. John Candy. My dad loves John Candy. If you are watching, I love that there's three quick consecutive shots of John Candy's police car in midair. And these shots almost but don't quite match up in terms of the exact angle of John Candy's flying police car before it lands in the moving semi truck. The Blues Brothers is an admirably precise combination of attention to detail and bold inattention. to detail. This movie is better than it has to be, but also strategically just janky enough to be credible. Also, I just rewatched this movie on Amazon, and apparently during production, they wrecked 103 cars making this movie, which was a Hollywood record in 1980. Good for them. Yeah, the last 20 minutes of this movie is a giant Looney Tunes car chase. The Blues Brothers are being angrily pursued by the cops. the Nazis, and also a country rock band called the Good Old Boys. But our heroes make it to the Cook County Assessor's Office in time to pay the orphanage's tax bill before the Blues Brothers finally get arrested and they play jailhouse rock in prison. Roll credits, and my dad and I call it a night. Crucially, we're watching this movie on television. Speaker 2 (6:07) WGN, maybe, out of Chicago, because the movie's set mostly in Chicago. Anyway, the Blues Brothers on TV has to be censored for TV, which means that a lot of characters in this movie say, shoot, even when they are very clearly saying another harsher word. Would you like to hear slash watch Aretha Franklin very clearly not say shoot? Speaker 2 (6:35) Shoot. There you go. Even if you're not watching, even the audio of Aretha Franklin saying shoot somehow makes it very clear that Aretha Franklin didn't just say shoot. Attention to detail, bold inattention to detail. RIP Aretha Franklin. My dad loves Aretha Franklin. But the scene where Aretha Franklin doesn't say shoot happens way, way earlier in this movie. Whereas due to my curfew timing situation, I usually only watch and rewatch. the last 20 minutes of this film. It's one of those deals. I've seen the end of The Blues Brothers like 400 times, and I've seen the whole movie from the beginning like twice. But as a teenager, sometimes I do get home a little earlier for whatever reason. Sometimes I get home when my dad's like halfway through The Blues Brothers, which means I get to watch the scene where The Blues Brothers attempt to play a show at a bar. called Bob's Country Bunker. Speaker 3 (7:34) What Speaker 2 (7:35) kind of music do you usually have here? Speaker 3 (7:38) Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western. Speaker 2 (7:41) That Blues Brothers line is also moderately famous, and I think you can hear that woman's giant beehive hairdo when she says, we got both kinds, country and western. She's the kindly bartender. at Bob's Country Bunker. I've seen the Blues Brothers country bar scene like 150 times, let's say. They ought to do a podcast on movies you might watch and rewatch a lot because they're on TV all the time or whatever. It's just a thought. It's a free idea. Also, as for me as a teenager, I'm not out on a Friday and Saturday nights doing anything glamorous or rebellious, mind you. I'm either driving from one Denny's to the other Denny's. or I'm playing Nintendo, I'm playing Tecmo Bowl or Battletoads or Tetris at a second location. That's all I'm doing. Okay, we talked about this a long time ago, but teenage me, as I'm out driving from Denny's to the other Denny's, and then as I'm racing home from other Denny's to make curfew, most probably music-wise, I got my CD player car adapter deal going. with the tape deck and the cigarette lighter. And I'm listening to Tool, the delightfully uncouth Los Angeles alt-prog metal band Tool. Not a lot of blues or country or Western influence in Tool, from what I can tell. I don't know if this has ever come up, but Tool are the 90s band that I listen to the most now, as an adult, as a f***. year old man. Yes, I just bleeped out my age. According to my recent Spotify wrapped data, my most played song of the year for the past like five years has been a tool song from 1996 called Hooker with a Penis. It's a great song. I listen to it now when I go pick up the pizzas or whatever. It's cathartic. Okay, I didn't name the song. You don't like the song title, go take it up with them. Speaker 2 (10:01) Great air bass song. Hooker with a penis. I didn't name it. Great air bass or air drums song, depending on your mood. But yeah, so I'm a teenager and I got a midnight curfew. And so I rumble into our driveway and I kill the ignition of my used Chrysler LeBaron before tool frontman Maynard James Keenan has even finished screaming the phrase, you can point that finger up your ass. And then I go watch the Blues Brothers with my dad. And if I get home early enough, I can watch the Blues Brothers. play Bob's Country Bunker, this cartoonishly hostile bar full of hayseed yokels who only want to listen to country and western. The joke here is that the Blues Brothers jump on stage. The stage is completely wrapped in chicken wire because the patrons of Bob's Country Bunker will be throwing beer bottles at the band the whole time. And so the Blues Brothers start out playing medium raucous blues jams and the hayseed yokels are furious. The enraged crowd hoots and hollers and tosses even more beer bottles at the stage, and the Blues Brothers realize they're going to get murdered by the yokels if they don't start playing country and western songs, except the Blues Brothers apparently only know how to play two songs like that. Speaker 3 (11:39) The Speaker 2 (11:40) first country and Western song the Blues Brothers know how to play is Rawhide by Frankie Lane, the theme song to the late 50s, early 60s cattle driving cowboy TV show Rawhide. You know the Rawhide theme song, right? It's the one that goes, move them on, hit them up, hit them up, move them on, move them on, hit them up, Rawhide. I've always wanted to sing that. I had to practice that over the course of several days, going between those two voices. I nailed it, by the way. Surprisingly challenging. Sorry. Yeah, the Blues Brothers sing Rawhide and the crowd loves it. And then the Blues Brothers sing the second country song, they know, and all the lovebirds in Bob's country bunker lean in close and start canoodling with one another while at least one single dude starts crying into his beer. Speaker 2 (12:47) The Blues Brothers break out Stand By Your Man, the Titanic 1968 country masterpiece sung by the almighty Tammy Wynette. I am eternally delighted by the rampant slapstick silliness here. Seven beer bottles hit the chicken wire directly in front of the Blues Brothers' faces. In the time it takes them to sing the line, sometimes it's hard to be a woman. And the guys don't even flinch. And of course, they're still wearing sunglasses. Now, I had certainly heard Tammy Wynette's Titanic 1968 country masterpiece, Stand By Your Man, before on various radio stations, on various jukeboxes, and probably also on 8-track in my grandpap's car, my grandpap's battleship-sized Buick. that was so large it took up three lanes of the highway, including, if necessary, one of the lanes heading in the opposite direction. But as a 90s teenager sitting here with my father, this Blues Brothers scene is my first time thinking hard about Stand By Your Man, thinking hard about the supernatural power of this song and country music as a whole, thinking hard about how this scene is extremely funny, but this scene also acknowledges that the weepy majesty of Stand By Your Man is no joke. Speaker 3 (14:08) Stand by your man and tell the world keep giving all. Speaker 2 (14:24) Yeah, the best actor in the Blues Brothers is the tough looking dude in the yellow trucker hat sitting alone at the country bar whose face crumples up during the chorus of Stand By Your Man. And he takes a little furtive, embarrassed sip of beer as his eyes glaze over. That guy did a great job. It would be both perverse and extremely rude to both her and to you. to not play you actual Tammy Wynette singing Stand By Your Man, listen to her absolutely emotionally shattering low-end vibrato on just the word can here. Speaker 3 (15:00) Stand by your man. Speaker 2 (15:18) That's Tammy Wynette on the country and Western TV showcase, the Wilburn Brothers show in 1969. Tammy is singing while sitting down on a porch swing. This is just a stupendous physical performance. And she's sitting there and her body and even her face barely move. Now, listen, in the 90s, I am an alt rock and flannel and corduroy wearing. tool-listening, sarcastic, elitist doofus, and I am not yet taking country music very seriously, and I am therefore not yet prepared to accept Tammy Wynette as my lord and savior. But I'll get there, because we all eventually get there with Tammy. Yes? The wonderful podcaster and author Tyler Mahan Coe, host of the essential country podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones, and author of the 2024 book Cocaine and Rhinestones, colon, A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. In that book, Tyler describes Tammy's greatness like this, quote, She did not have Patsy Cline's range. She did not have Loretta Lynn's attitude. What she had was something different, capital S, capital D. There was a unique pain in her voice, and she could take it from quiet to loud and back at the drop of a hat. hurting the whole way. End quote. Here is Tammy singing I Don't Want to Play House from 1967, her first country number one. It would take me a surprisingly long time to explain the premise of this song to you, but really, Tammy tells you all you need to know here, just in the way her voice leaps suddenly from devastated quiet murmur to devastated jet engine. Speaker 3 (17:07) So I'm what I said. to see what they were doing Speaker 2 (17:26) That is a voice that can make you drive your battleship-sized three-lane Buick right off the highway and send you flying off a ramp and into a moving semi-truck. Tammy Wynette got married five times, including to our fellow country lord and savior, George Jones, and she suffered all manner of public calamities and indignities and absurdities. But Tammy's heartbreak bazooka voice is eternal. It is indestructible. It cannot be diminished or mocked or even slightly imperiled by teenage sarcastic elitist doofus type irony. In 1991, Tammy Wynette appeared on a super bizarre minor alt-rock radio hit called Justified and Ancient, a song by delightfully baffling English prankster dance music duo the KLF. And I remember hearing this song all the time on the radio and I'd be like, Does Tammy Wynette have any idea what's going on here? When of course the real question was, do I have any idea what's going on here? Speaker 2 (18:51) Bring the beat back. No, no, I don't have any idea what's going on here. It would take me two hours to even try to explain the ostensible premise of this song, let alone try to explain the KLF's whole deal. But suffice it to say that in the Justified and Ancient video, Tammy Wynette is once again majestically belting out those lines while sitting down, though this time she's sitting on some kind of d***. dune-ass space throne. As a teenager, I just snidely assume that the Blues Brothers' Stand By Your Man scene is a joke about the corniness of country music. As an adult, I now recognize that the Blues Brothers' Stand By Your Man scene is a humorous but also totally sincere acknowledgement of the immense mystical emotional power of country music. I figured it out. Eventually, I learned to respect country music. Eventually. But as with all great emotional realizations, I only started to figure it out after someone yelled at me on the internet. Speaker 2 (20:12) Here we have country star Pam Tillis, who first blew up in the 90s. She is the daughter of country star Mel Tillis, who first blew up in the 70s. Here we have a 1995 Pam Tillis song called The River and the Highway. A woman is a river who twists and turns. A man is a highway stubbornly heading straight for one destination. The river and the highway can't perfectly align for long. That's a flood. But perhaps the river and the highway can reach some sort of peaceful, loving, supportive coexistence. Beautiful song. Anyway, when I was in college, Pam Tillis was supposed to play a show on my college campus, but she had to cancel. And so I wrote a colossally stupid column. for the student newspaper making fun of Pam Tillis and country music as a whole. And the day my stupid column came out, a professor at my college emailed me to yell at me. And rightly so. As part of my ongoing lifelong insufficient apology to Pam Tillis, here's another fabulous Pam Tillis song called Cleopatra, Queen of Denial. Speaker 2 (21:37) Pam Tillis digs her river imagery. That's a pun, right? Queen of the Nile. You don't need me to explain that to you. But apparently when I was 19 or so, I needed someone to explain a few things to me. I don't got a lot of detail here, but I'm a columnist for my college newspaper. And when Pam Tillis cancels her show, I write a sardonic. hilarious, indefensible, smirking dipshit column about how corny and unsophisticated country music is, and why would cool college kids like myself even like country music anyway? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ridiculous. My knowledge of country music at this particular time consists primarily of the Blues Brothers' Stand By Your Man scene and various amusing pun-based classic country music song titles. And so most of my indefensible smirking dipshit college newspaper column is just me name dropping old country songs like Drop Kick Me Jesus. And I gave her a ring. She gave me the finger and she got the gold mine. I got the shaft. Speaker 3 (22:46) She got the gold mine. I got the shaft. They split it right down the middle and then they give her the better half. Speaker 2 (22:56) I had never listened to that before, and I figured I owed it to both of us. That's a 1982 Jerry Reed song called She Got the Gold Mine, parenthesis, I Got the Shaft, close parenthesis. You'd think I would respect all the parentheses in these song titles, if nothing else. I feel like the boom drum there really makes the song, by the way. Yeah, so this stupid college newspaper column runs where I make fun of country music, and I receive an email. from a professor at my college, not my professor. I don't know this woman and I don't think she previously knows me, but I inspired her to reach out. And I don't remember anything this woman says to me specifically, but the gist of what she says to me is you just wrote the stupidest thing I've ever read in my life and you should feel bad. And I do feel bad immediately. The only concrete thing I remember is that the subject line of this woman's email to me was, your humor. Scare quotes. Your humor. Let me tell you what. You do not want to receive an email with that subject line ever. Okay? You don't get a your humor email because you did something too awesome. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 2 (24:19) I'm 100 % serious about this. This actually happened. I just typed out that line about how you don't want to get a Your Humor email, and then 10 seconds later, I found out that Dolly Parton died. And so, yeah, okay. On account of Dolly Parton being probably objectively the single greatest American who ever lived, let's go ahead and allow Dolly Parton to derail my train of thought entirely. Speaker 4 (24:47) Sitting on the front porch on a summer afternoon In a straight back chair