Lee Ann Womack — “I Hope You Dance”

She sings both kinds of music—country and Western—and you better be grateful for it. Lee Ann Womack followed in the footsteps of icons like Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette, but she took even greater inspiration from male country stars like George Jones. After making a name for herself with her captivating tunes, Womack reckoned with love and faith on the beautiful—and melancholy?—"I Hope You Dance," which became a crossover hit and Womack's signature song. Rob is joined by music journalist Marissa R. Moss, who discusses what Womack faced as a woman in country music during the late '90s and 2000s and the selflessness it takes to write a love song to someone who is leaving your life. (00:00) Intro: The Blues Brothers go to Bob's Country Bunker (24:19) Remembering Dolly Parton (38:11) This week's song: "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack (41:02) Womack's early tracks and the state of country in the late '90s (57:28) Is "I Hope You Dance" a sad or happy song? (01:05:27) Interview with Marissa R. Moss (01:33:12) Outro Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Marissa R. Moss Producers: Julianna Ress, Chris Sutton, Justin Sayles, and Olivia Crerie Power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/60songsthatexplainthe90s/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@60songsthatexplainthe90s?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:07Speaker 00

  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.

• 0:48Speaker 00

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• 2:02Speaker 00

  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/ninteswich2.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Games and systems sold separately. Games rated E to E10+. So my weekend curfew as a teenager is midnight, which means I saunter triumphantly through our front door somewhere between 11:58 PM and 12:25 AM. 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

• 3:20Speaker 00

  because this is the 90s, back when you just gotta watch whatever movie's 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.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  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. Hit it!

• 4:06Speaker 00

  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

• 4:51Speaker 00

  movie. Sneaky great movie. 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

• 5:32Speaker 00

  free to just enjoy the car chase sounds and also the jovial, medium-roucous blues music that is playing in the background pretty much the entire time.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  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 re-watched this movie on Amazon and apparently during production, they wrecked

• 6:33Speaker 00

  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. WGN, maybe, out of Chicago because the movie's

• 7:14Speaker 00

  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/watch Aretha Franklin very clearly not say "shoot"?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Shoot.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  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. R.I.P. 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 re-watch 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

• 8:23Speaker 00

  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.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  What kind of music do you usually have here? Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western.

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  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 re-watch 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 Friday and Saturday nights doing anything glamorous or rebellious. Mind you, I'm either driving from one Denny's

• 9:24Speaker 00

  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 a tape deck and a 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

• 10:06Speaker 00

  if this has ever come up, but Tool are the 90s band that I listen to the most now as an adult, as a [bleep] 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 this song. You don't like the song title, go take it up with them.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  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, as they've finished screaming the phrase, "You can point that fucking 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.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  The joke here is that The Blues Brothers jump onstage. 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.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  The 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 'em on, hit 'em up, hit 'em up, move 'em on, move 'em on, hit 'em 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 sang "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

• 13:28Speaker 00

  and start canoodling with one another, while at least one single dude starts crying into his beer.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  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,

• 14:33Speaker 00

  and probably also on 8-track in my grandpap's car, my grandpap's battleship-sized Buick. It 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.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  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.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  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-rockin', flannel-and-corduroy-wearin', Tool-listin', 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.

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  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: 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"

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  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.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  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

• 19:11Speaker 00

  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?"

• 19:55Speaker 00

  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 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"

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  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 always started to figure it out after someone yelled at me on the internet.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  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.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  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."

• 22:41Speaker 00

  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

• 23:26Speaker 00

  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 "Dropkick Me, Jesus", and "I Gave Her a Ring," "She Gave Me the Finger," and "She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft."

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  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, I Got the Shaft." 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,

• 24:43Speaker 00

  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?

• 25:23Speaker 00

  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.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  And now this is happening. We're gonna work through this together. Here is a Dolly Parton song from 1973. Here is the title track to her 1973 album called "My Tennessee Mountain Home", featuring on the album cover Dolly's actual childhood home in the mountains of Tennessee. Yes, yes, Dolly Parton, the single greatest American who ever lived. Yes, partly her all-time greatness is due to her art. Yes, her decades of iconic, bonkers, genre-defining hit songs. Yes, but also the seemingly hundreds of fantastic, not-as-big-a-hit songs. The astounding, nation-defining vividness of both her singing and her songwriting

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  in all respects, at all times. Sitting on the front porch on a summer afternoon in a straight-backed chair on two legs leaned against the wall. You hear Dolly Parton sing these words, backed by nothing but the faintest acoustic guitar. And Dolly changes your body chemistry. She transforms your physical surroundings. Suddenly, you're sitting on the front porch next to her. You're sitting in a chair next to her. You're leaning back on two legs right next to her. You can feel a slight, not unpleasant, sense of vertigo from leaning back in your chair like that. Through her songs and through her voice as she sings her songs, Dolly Parton manifests a specific place, a specific time,

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  and the specific feelings and physical senses that define and manifest and make permanently real that place and time. And then she invites you to join her. And that warmth, that kindness, that invitation, that inclusion is another aspect of her all-time greatness. I tend to overuse the word "transportive" in my trenchant rock criticism, but that's just me saying the word "transportive", whereas "transportive" is just what Dolly Parton's songs are.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  And chase the glowing fireflies when evening shadows fall.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  And chase the glowing fireflies when evening shadows fall. Unbelievable. Something about this phrase, the simplicity, the natural beauty of this phrase, but also something about the meter, the rhythm of it. And chase the glowing fireflies when evening shadows fall. Something here reminds me that in 1999, back when I was an alt-rocking collegiate dipshit, not paying enough attention or respect to country music, in 1999, Dolly Parton put out an album called Trio Two, Trio Roman numeral two, her second full-length trio album with her country icon friends Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

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  And on their second trio album, Linda and Emmylou and Dolly covered Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush." This lyrical imagery is less naturalistic. This lyrical imagery is not, I assume, based on Dolly Parton's personal photorealistic memory of her childhood Tennessee mountain home. And yet, when Dolly Parton sings "After the Gold Rush," she invites you there and transports you there anyway. There being the, not to speculate, but possibly drug-induced dream Neil Young is having circa 1970. And Dolly makes you believe that she's always lived there amid the silver spaceships flying

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  in the yellow haze of the sun.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying in the yellow haze of the sun. There were children crying and colors flying all around the chosen ones.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  As a singer, as an interpreter, Dolly treats glowing fireflies and silver spaceships with the same reverence, the same immediacy, the same tangible reality. Seriously, I was going to talk about totally different stuff, but now I'm not because Dolly Parton died. I really want to talk about that other stuff, but we'll talk about that other stuff some other time. That's my problem. Remember in 2001, when Dolly Parton covered "Shine" by the grunge-adjacent, super 90s alt-rock band Collective Soul? Yeah, that one. I don't know what the Collective Soul guy meant when he sang the line, "Heaven, let

• 30:49Speaker 00

  your light shine down." I think I always assumed he meant like, "I hope someone buys me a Camaro." But when Dolly Parton sings, "Heaven, let your light shine down," Dolly means, "Heaven, let your light shine down." And Dolly sounds like heaven's light shining down.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  It's even heavenly, the way Dolly smiles up at heaven in the "Shine" video when she sings, "Heaven, let your light shine down." The phenomenal bluegrass band Nickel Creek backing up Dolly Parton there. That song won a Grammy. Dolly Parton just totally threw me all the way off. I forgot all the other stuff I was thinking about. It's amazing. I have never had a terrible, real-life event totally reroute me mid-script before. Ugh, we can get where we're going this way also, probably eventually. I think about the general media attitude toward Dolly Parton in the 80s and 90s, in my youth and halting, wincing, stupid newspaper column-writing, young adulthood.

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  I think about her public persona. I think about all the uncouth jokes about her, all the ribaldry. Many of those uncouth jokes and much of that ribaldry cheerfully delivered by Dolly Parton herself. We think of Dolly Parton as someone permanently, gloriously in on the joke, right? But I wonder now if maybe all that cheeseball, hornball goofiness made it easier for 19-year-old me to overlook her true greatness musically. When a huge beloved superstar passes, I'm always curious about what exactly social media seizes on immediately, what songs or movie scenes or talk show appearances or memes or whatever.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  When Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, she was 80 years old. When Dolly Parton died, everyone seemed to gravitate toward a screenshot of her 1995 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Dolly did the top 10 list that night. She did the top 10 Dolly Parton pet peeves.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  And now, the number one Dolly Parton pet peeve.

• 33:12Speaker 06

  Nobody notices I've got a great ass, too.

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  And that quote works perfectly well as a screenshot, as a caption, right? But I do think there's enormous value in hearing and seeing Dolly deliver the line, the zaniness in her voice and in her eyes, but her total commitment, too. She winds up and she fires off the line, "Nobody notices I've got a great ass, too," like it's an 105 mile-per-hour fastball. I can't decide if this really matters to anybody, myself included. But I went and I watched this whole Letterman top 10 list, and something keeps urging me to show you an earlier part of this top 10 list where both Dave and Dolly flub their lines and they stumble all over each other.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  There is maybe also enormous value in reminding ourselves that Dolly Parton was not perfect and the world didn't need her to be or even want her to be perfect. What makes the Dolly Parton persona great is the effort, the realness, yes, the authenticity. What's that she always used to say? It takes a lot of money to look this cheap. It takes a lot of imperfection to make her look this perfect. Dolly is superhuman. She is eternally better than she has to be. But part of that superhumanness involves being just human enough to be credible.

• 34:36Speaker 06

  Number four. Okay.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Go ahead.

• 34:39Speaker 06

  You ready?

• 34:40Speaker 05

  Uh, let's just go home, Dolly. Number four.

• 34:44Speaker 06

  Okay, when he visits Dollywood gift shops, Garth Brooks always shoplifts stuff under that big hat of his. Yeah, let's do go home.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's do go home. Her smile never wavers, the zaniness in her voice and in her eyes never dims. Dolly's charm only intensifies as she stumbles her way through the line. It's a clunky line. It's not her fault. And there's an extra charming bit of pride in her eyes when she finally gets all the way through the line. It is always tempting when someone of this magnitude dies to get all maudlin and defeatist and announce, for example, that we will never see the likes of Dolly Parton again. No one human will ever again inspire the global consensus Dolly Parton inspired, the musical legacy and the humanitarian legacy, the philanthropy, the Dolly Parton imagination

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  library itself that donated more than 300 million books to children. It's too much. We don't have the time, the space, or the emotional capacity to do this person justice. This is indeed one of the direst, "we will never see the likes of them again" obituary situations I've yet encountered. But we have to believe otherwise. Dolly Parton would want us to believe that Dolly Parton's fundamental kindness and greatness can be emulated and replicated and carried on. Her personal greatness, but also, just as daunting, her musical greatness. Signs and offshoots of Dolly Parton's greatness are all around us.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  There are lots of songs, past and present, that carry some soothing semblance of Dolly Parton's spirit. Let me give you an example.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  I hope life treats you kind. And I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  So this is the original 1974 Dolly Parton version of her song, "I Will Always Love You." As a dim-witted 90s teenager, I understand this song to be a joint custody situation now between Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston. I don't think Dolly would take much offense to that. All on its own, the notably mega-successful Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You" probably helped Dolly give away a couple hundred million books to children. These are the song's final lines before the final, big, womping chorus. Whitney Houston, of course, treats these lines as a space shuttle launching pad. But Dolly's own original version is quieter, simpler, less triumphant.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  "I Will Always Love You" is a beautiful song, a tremendously romantic song, but above all, it's an unbearably heartbreaking song. The singer of this song and the subject, the recipient of this song, are parting ways. And despite all her love and warmth and tenderness, all Dolly Parton can provide in this moment is hope. "I hope life treats you kind. I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of." But of course, the song cannot guarantee that life will treat you kind and give you all that you ever dreamed of. Even though she's the Dolly Parton, all Dolly Parton can really do is wish for it.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  And I wish you joy and happiness. But above all of this, I wish you love.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  And then Dolly sings the chorus, the famous chorus. And again, compared to Whitney Houston, Dolly's version of the "I Will Always Love You" chorus is more devastated, quiet murmur than devastated jet engine, if only by comparison.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  This song is not at all trying to hide the hoping, the dreaming, the uncertainty, the possibility that you may not get love, even if Dolly wishes you love. But that's what makes "I Will Always Love You" an all-time great love song. The acknowledgement that nothing is guaranteed, no matter how intensely you hope for something, and no matter how earnest and tender and beautiful a song you construct around that hope.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 51st episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. And after a slight unavoidable delay, this week, we are talking about "I Hope You Dance" by LeAnn Womack, from her third album, released in the year 2000, and called "I Hope You Dance." With this song, it is more challenging for me to remind myself that "I hope you never lose your sense of wonder" is a very different sentiment from "I know for a fact that you will never lose your sense of wonder." What LeAnn is saying there, in essence, is, "You had [bleep] better not lose your sense of wonder, or I'm coming over there."

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I bleeped that out, too. If LeAnn Womack didn't sing that line so gently and lovingly, you might also take "may you never take one single breath for granted" as a threat. You might also take "God forbid love ever leave you empty-handed" as a threat against God, but I don't think LeAnn Womack rolls like that. Nonetheless, the all-time greatness of "I Hope You Dance" requires you to understand that no matter how much you love someone, wishing for someone to get something is a very different action than giving them something. LeAnn Womack can't make you dance. She can only hope that you do.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  In the late 90s, as an elitist, alt-rocking, knucklehead dipshit with very little respect for or knowledge of country music, I'm sure I would have told you that real country music was Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Johnny Cash, and whoever else. But all this new pop country was just a lousy facsimile. The undeniable greatness of LeAnn Womack's "I Hope You Dance" helped set me straight. Ooh, boy, ad break.

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• 43:03Speaker 00

  Cut 'em out, ride 'em in, ride 'em in, coat 'em out, coat 'em out, ride 'em in. All right, we gotta hustle. The ad break and the announcement of the song this episode is about came way later in the show than usual, for unavoidable, and you might even say noble, reasons. So yeah, here are the first lines of the first song on LeAnn Womack's first album. This is a "you're gonna be a fan for life within 20 seconds" situation right here. Hit the deck.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Sold! Congratulations on becoming a LeAnn Womack fan for life just now, in the event you were not previously a LeAnn Womack fan. It's the resignation and absolute command of the line "I can't help myself" there. This song is called "Never Again, Again," and it is indeed the first song on and the first single from her debut album, released in 1997 and called simply "LeAnn Womack." LeAnn, two words, L-E-E-A-N-N. LeAnn Womack is born in 1966 in the small town of Jacksonville, Texas, known informally as the tomato capital of the world. It's a tough place to make it as a singer. I'm very sorry.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  I don't even think Dolly Parton could have sold that joke. Talking to No Depression Magazine in 2014, LeAnn Womack says, quote, "When you're living in a town that's small and you have dreams that are really, really big, it's tough. And yeah, I wanted out the whole time. I mean, I'm talking from the time I was very, very young. I remember watching the Porter Wagoner Show, seeing Dolly on there, and I'd think, I want to do that," end quote. Porter Wagoner being the guy "I Will Always Love You" is about. Of course, "I Will Always Love You" is Dolly Parton's way of informing Porter Wagoner that she was going solo. Some of the greatest love songs are also emphatic, it's-not-you-it's-me breakup songs.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  This No Depression article, then it says that as a little kid, LeAnn Womack used to imitate Dolly Parton's early '70s Breeze detergent commercials, the ones where Dolly would read off the colors, raspberry red, huckleberry blue, and lemon yellow. I'm not up on this. Let's get up on this.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  Each drop towel matches up with a solid to make a set in three delicious color combinations, raspberry, lemon, and huckleberry blue. They're a real treat, but you can't buy them. You can only get them in boxes of Breeze detergent.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  That is the largest box of laundry detergent I've ever seen in my life. It's like twice the size of Dolly's head. I can see why that ad alone could make Dolly Parton an aspirational figure to a little kid in the early '70s. LeAnn Womack briefly attends college in Levelland, Texas, before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, where she studies the music business at Belmont College whilst interning for the big-shot record label MCA Nashville. She gets married to the country singer and songwriter Jason Sellers. They have a daughter, Aubrey Sellers, who is now a country singer herself. But LeAnn and Jason get divorced in 1996. This is all before LeAnn Womack's debut album comes out.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  She has acquired a great deal of experience, personal and professional experience, joyful and devastating experience, before most of the world even hears her voice. This lady does not need to warm up as a singer and songwriter and song interpreter. And indeed, LeAnn Womack's 1997 debut album features her first all-time masterpiece. The key words here are "mind if I sit down."

• 47:11Speaker 04

  You don't know me, but I know who you are.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Mind if I sit down?

• 47:22Speaker 04

  Do I look familiar? If I don't, well, I should. I'm sure you've seen me around.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  This song is called "The Fool." It is [bleep] believable. Sorry, I just don't feel like swearing this time. It's the modesty, but also the quietly explosive country diva grandeur in LeAnn Womack's voice when she sings the words, "Mind if I sit down? That's how you know." Likewise, the modest, but somehow also explosive grandeur of "Do I look familiar? If I don't, well, I should." That's how you know this will not be LeAnn Womack's last all-time masterpiece. The high note on the chorus here, the first time she sings the word "fool" here, that's naturally going to attract most of your attention.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  But look out for when she immediately follows that up with the lethal delicacy of the phrase, "in love with the fool."

• 48:23Speaker 04

  I know you've probably heard my name, though we've not been introduced.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  I'm the fool in love with the fool who's still in love with you.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  That "in love with the fool" will knock you flat on your ass. That line will make every drunk dude at Bob's Country Bunker burst into tears. So "the fool" is a quietly brutal conversation between two women about the man that at least one of them is in love with. There are songs that don't pass the Bechdel test, and then there are songs that very explicitly and almost exultantly fail the Bechdel test. And so "the fool," a quietly brutal conversation between two women about a man, is therefore canonically a part of the Jolene Extended Universe, to mention another iconic Dolly Parton song, and perhaps still the iconic Dolly Parton song. But lest we overdo the Dolly influence here,

• 49:28Speaker 00

  let me note that in this No Depression article about LeAnn Womack, it says, quote, "Womack grew up loving queens of country like Dolly, Loretta, and Tammy Wynette, but her biggest singing role models have almost always been men. She loved Bob Wills from a very young age, and later thrilled every new record from Ray Price, Merle Haggard, and Conway Twitty, her first concert at age eight or nine. Greatest of all was George Jones. My favorite singer," she practically shouts, "in the world," end quote. Yeah, I can see it. As you leave, you'll see the nursery.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Oh, she left me without mercy, taking nothing but her baby and my heart. That's a bonkers George Jones hit from 1974 called "The Grand Tour." The ecstatically miserable meal George makes of that "oh," in "Oh, she left me without mercy," that's what'll get you crying into your beer, even if you are not currently drinking a beer. So LeAnn Womack's debut album comes out in 1997, when Garth Brooks is still dominant, when Shania Twain puts out her album, "Come On Over," that'll eventually sell 40 million copies worldwide,

• 50:55Speaker 00

  when Tim McGraw and Reba McEntire and LeAnn Rimes and Toby Keith and George Strait are among the country music elites. LeAnn Rimes, one word, L-E capital A-N-N. In country overall, we got an intriguing mix of blockbuster pop crossover stars and neo-traditional stars. And LeAnn Womack would seem to trend toward the more traditional, old-school approach. Though, listening to her first record now, what's most striking, what's most important, is just the delightful colossal force of her personality, the way she's actively trying to pack a huge wallop into individual words the way, say, George Jones does. Dig the tremendous sauce LeAnn puts on the word

• 51:38Speaker 00

  "talk" here, twice.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  Have a little faith in me, baby. Can't you see you've got to talk to me? Have a little faith in me, baby. Can't you see you've got to talk to me?

• 51:58Speaker 00

  That song's called "You've Got to Talk to Me," and her accent and her emphasis on "talk" snaps me to attention every time. Are you familiar with the term "action items"? It's sort of a cheesy corporate HR sort of phrase. I worked for a streaming service for a couple of years, and all the people there were super cool, but we had lots of meetings, and those meetings ended with "action items," meaning roughly, "go do this [bleep] right now." I'll bleep that, too. I'm committed to this. LeAnn Womack excels at "action items." The best LeAnn Womack songs just tell you what to do. LeAnn returns in 1998, just one year later, with her second album called "Some Things I Know." And once again, we got a fascinating mixture

• 52:42Speaker 00

  of the past and a best-case-scenario vision of the present where country music is concerned. If you prefer the past, dig LeAnn's cover of an early '80s weeper called "I'd Rather Have What We Had."

• 52:57Speaker 04

  Sneaking around with me, being tied down with me, which one would you rather have?

• 53:12Speaker 00

  The pedal steel and the rich vocal harmonies there, that's the great '90s country star, Joe Diffie, singing with LeAnn there. The pedal steel and the vocal harmony will knock you on your ass. There, I'm not bleeping that. I can say "ass" still. I gotta draw the line somewhere. "I'd Rather Have What We Had" was written by the great Bobby Braddock. Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn first sang it as a duet in 1981, and then George Jones did it himself in 1983. The premise of this song, a premise that is somehow both soul-shattering and kind of hilarious. The premise here is that extramarital affairs are way more exciting and romantic than boring old marriages. Infidelity beats domesticity.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Feel free to disagree, but LeAnn Womack really sinks her teeth into the rhyme, "dying to be with me or watching TV with me? Choose one."

• 54:09Speaker 04

  Dying to be with me or watching TV with me? Is this what we wanted so bad?

• 54:26Speaker 04

  I'd rather have what we had.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Before I pick, what are we watching on TV exactly? If you desire something off the second LeAnn Womack record that sounds a bit more like 1998, something upbeat and buoyant with VH1-type heartland rock overtones? Something halfway between Shania Twain and Sheryl Crow? I recommend this song, "I'll Think of a Reason Later," in which LeAnn finds an old flame's wedding announcement in the paper, and she trash-talks her old flame's new fiancee for a while. Mostly, I just like the way LeAnn sings, "We decided she don't take a very good picture."

• 55:11Speaker 04

  There was the girl on the social page, looking in love and all engaged. We decided she don't take a very good picture.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  LeAnn Womack, a country star you'd want to have several beers with. The first time I found this song, "I'll Think of a Reason Later," on YouTube, it had been posted by a YouTube account called "When Country Music Was Country," which posts great country songs from the '60s through the '90s and whose name implies that country music is no longer country. Let's not get bogged down in a debate about what is and isn't country, but suffice it to say, LeAnn Womack is right in the thick of that argument. My favorite song on her second album is called "The Man Who Made My Mama Cry." It is addressed by a young child to a deadbeat dad attempting to reconnect. And as classic country vibes go,

• 56:07Speaker 00

  that song title alone might knock you back 20 or 30 years, while the emotional intensity of the song itself launches you into next week.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  All I know about you is how to live without you. I can see I have your eyes.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  But all you've ever been is the man who made my mama cry. All I know about you is how to live without you is some hard [bleep]. I think it's fair to say. That is an awfully heavy metal sentiment in its way. LeAnn Womack has put out nine albums total. Her most recent album from 2017 is called The Lonely, The Lonesome, and The Gone. And it was Grammy nominated in a couple Americana categories. As a veteran country music star, if you remain steadfast in your allegiance to real country music, whatever that might mean to you, you might find yourself diverted

• 57:12Speaker 00

  to the Americana genre, which is a vexing conundrum for another time. Furthermore, for various noble reasons, I do not have the space or time to do LeAnn's full career justice. But as a way of illustrating the rowdier side of this woman's personality, in 2008, she put out an album called Call Me Crazy. And to help promote the album, she provided to a newspaper called The Nashville Tennessean, LeAnn provided a list of the 10 craziest things she's ever done. I found this list illuminating. Real quick, in her own words, here's the 10 craziest things LeAnn Womack has ever done. Number one, got knocked up

• 57:57Speaker 00

  by the A&R guy. LeAnn is now married to the A&R guy and country super producer Frank Liddell. Number two, called a certain radio station and asked them to please mail the term "country" back to me, since they clearly weren't using it. Number three, spray painted "you've never even heard" country music on the side of a music row building. Number four, threatened to Nancy Kerrigan, a fellow female artist, at an awards show. I'd really like to know who that was, personally. Number five, threatened to fire my entire band for

• 58:41Speaker 00

  going to bed earlier than I thought was necessary. Number six, made the whole band watch Night Calls on the Playboy Channel with me. I don't know what that is exactly, but I think I know enough. Number seven, made the whole band read To Kill a Mockingbird and give me a report on it. Number eight, recorded The Weston Sessions at the Weston Hotel in Times Square, a project that included only songs making fun of other artists. That album does not appear to be a public document. Alas. Number nine, threatened to give a certain Tennessean music critic, quote, "three swift kicks to the groin," end quote, after he

• 59:25Speaker 00

  wrote a mostly positive, but not all positive, review of her 2005 album. There's more where that came from. And number 10, voted for George W. Bush twice. Please join me now in imagining LeAnn Womack kicking a music critic swiftly in the groin three times while she's singing this song. I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean. Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens. LeAnn Womack's third album comes out in the year 2000 and is called I Hope You

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Dance. The song, I Hope You Dance, blows the fuck up. It is LeAnn Womack's first to date only number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. It also tops Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. It hits number 14 on the Hot 100. I Hope You Dance is the dreaded, celebrated, subconsciously feared, but also very much wished-for pop crossover hits. Do you know that Dr. Seuss book, Oh, The Places You'll Go? First published in 1990? Huh. I would have bet Oh, The Places You'll Go is like from the 60s. Huh. When I graduated from high school in 1996, my parents bought me a copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go. It's

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  behind me. And my mom handwrote an incredibly nice message in it that I haven't read in a while, and I'm afraid to reread it now because I'll start crying. Right? Oh, The Places You'll Go is an excellent gift for a high school graduate, for an inbound college student, or really for anyone undergoing a major life change that will involve both daunting challenges and wondrous new experiences. I always thought of I Hope You Dance as the Oh, The Places You'll Go of country music. In fact, the lyrics to I Hope You Dance were released as a children's book while the song was still on the charts. I meant that Dr. Seuss comparison as a compliment, and I still do. "I hope you still feel small

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  when you stand beside the ocean" is a monster line. There's tremendous complexity there. There is hope and support and love and awe in that line, but also there is not fear, but just a healthy dauntedness, an acknowledgement of the hugeness of the world, no matter how huge your heart might be. And then there's the line that really kills me every time. Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance. I don't want to oversell

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  this, but I went to Catholic school until I was in sixth grade. I got confirmed Catholic. I recall that the two live crew were a frequent topic of conversation among the students at my confirmation classes. My dad has played drums in his church band for 10 years. My mother is extremely spiritual. She reads widely. She does Bible studies. She believes. Mom and dad believe. And so much of what is wonderful about my parents is an extension of that belief. I have not turned out to be as religiously inclined as I think they'd want for me. I don't know that because they say anything like that to me. I just feel that. I am projecting. I am not the worst-case scenario where spiritual matters are concerned.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  But like, for example, I swear more on podcasts than they might prefer. Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance slaps me in the face every time. I get a little jolt. I feel it as part sweet motivation and part gentle but firm rebuke. And then I get knocked on my ass again by the dudes who jump in on the second chorus. I hope you try. It's a wheel in constant motion, always rolling us along. That's

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  The Sons of the Desert singing a counter melody there. The Sons of the Desert, a Waco country band on LeAnn Womack's label at the time. And then, as LeAnn sings I Hope You Dance some more, The Sons of the Desert sing, "Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone. You'd better not waste your life, this song says to you, gently but firmly." I Hope You Dance is not a threat, but it's not a promise. I Hope You Dance was written by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Siller. In that No Depression magazine article, LeAnn Womack talks about how she understands that many

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  of her listeners think of this song as, quote, "happy and sunny, all tied up in a nice little package," end quote. LeAnn disagrees. She says, quote, "I think my vocal performance comes from a more pessimistic place, comes from a darker place. It's melancholy," end quote. Then she talks about how I Hope You Dance is a blessing and a curse for her. The blessing part is pretty obvious and important. She's got at least one song that's a part of so many people's lives. They associate this song with huge moments in their lives. And LeAnn says, quote, "I'm starting to see the second wave of it. These kids, whose

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  parents gave them the song when they were much younger, are now coming out to the shows. And they think of me like I thought of Dolly Parton. That's a blessing, too," end quote. The curse part is murkier and heavier and involves a great deal more melancholy. LeAnn says, quote, "Once you have a song that big in regular radio rotation, it becomes the only song for me that there is, and I become the song." She says, "People expect you to be almost like a motivational speaker and for the show to be almost like a religious experience." She says, "I had to move my meet and greets to after the show because

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  so many people associate the song with a death. The song helped them deal with the loss, and they have come to tell me how the song helped them heal. It helped them heal." That's amazing. "But I would have to hear all of these stories before I went on stage. And I wasn't singing just one song, or I wasn't doing 90 minutes of a certain kind of song. I had Never Again, Again. I had The Fool and all these honky-tonk songs. Country songs I had to deliver. So it did become sort of an albatross in some ways," end quote. The best part is the last chorus, right? The part where the strings swell

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  a little bit, and then all the instruments drop away for a split second, and then LeAnn drops the words "I hope you" and instead, she gives you a direct, one-word command. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

• 1:06:57Speaker 00

  It's a prayer and it's a warning. It's awfully pretty and it's awfully melancholy. It's a somewhat spiritual, somewhat motivational celebration of all that is beautiful and terribly intimidating in the world. It is hopeful, but it is not an assurance. It's a serene and lovely series of suggestions, but what you do with those suggestions is out of LeAnn Womack's control. It's an action item. It's a song I love very much that kind of sort of really freaks me out. And every time LeAnn tells me to give Faith a fighting chance, and every time she hits

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  that last dance with all the sauce she's got, all I can do is say out loud, "Shoot." Our guest today is Marissa Moss, a senior writer at Rolling Stone, the co-founder of the great country music Substack newsletter, Don't Rock the Inbox, and the author of the book, Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be. Her next book, out in summer 2027, is I've Been a Bad, Bad Girl: Growing Up and Out of the 90s with the Women Whose Music Changed Our Lives Forever. Marissa, thank you so much for being here.

• 1:08:18Speaker 06

  Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be back.

• 1:08:21Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. We've talked Shania now and Avril Lavigne, if I remember correctly. We've both kinds of music, I think, we've covered here. And that's, I'm so great to talk to you again.

• 1:08:32Speaker 06

  The only two kinds, yeah.

• 1:08:34Speaker 00

  That's, those are the only two kinds. Avril and Shania, that's it. So LeAnn Womack put out her first album in 1997. While Shania is huge, Garth Brooks is huge, LeAnn Rimes is having a big year, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are getting bigger and bigger. Like, to your mind, what is the sound and the vibe and the general direction of country music in 1997? And is LeAnn Womack sort of going along with that or sort of pushing against what country is like in this moment?

• 1:09:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's not quite to the anniversary date because we're in 2026, but I was thinking about how now we're having this big country moment, obviously with Chus in Texas and Ella Langley. And in 1997, you were having this country moment, like we're seeing now. You were having Garth, you were having Shania Twain, you were having LeAnn Rimes, who I love, having a huge moment, which she still was having a huge moment. And then you have someone like LeAnn Womack, who comes from Texas, comes really insistent on singing a really kind of pure, traditional, laced country music, bringing in, you know,

• 1:09:48Speaker 06

  fiddle and traditional instrumentation and her Texas roots, and not being that kind of big, in-your-face pop star crossover thing that Shania was doing, which, don't get me wrong, love Shania, but she was different in that way.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. And also, she wasn't a teenager. Like, by the time her first album came out, like, she had a daughter, you know, she'd gone through a divorce, you know, she'd been studying music at college, she'd been interning at a Nashville label. Like, she's lived a full lifetime or two already. Like, do you hear that additional sort of experience? Like, I don't know if maturity is the right word, but does that change the way you hear the music and the music she makes, that she's already gone through so many of these things?

• 1:10:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's this kind of this soul, this, this lived in, this bluesiness to the way that she sings that feels like it's coming from a place of like deep knowing. And the greatest country artists, in my opinion, do that. They can just transmit, whether they're writing songs or whether they're interpreting songs, they can just tap into that, like, lived in emotion. And I also love that she came into Nashville when she, she was, came into Nashville as a recording artist, she was here, but a little bit older, with a little bit more experience under her belt, because normally that is not something we love as a society in general. Women who, you know,

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:15Speaker 06

  Had some life experience, not, not everyone's favorite.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. My favorite song of hers is "The Fool," right? Which comes right on that first record. And I agree with you completely that there, in the way that she sings it, you know, there's just a weight, you know, and a soulfulness and a sadness that I, you know, it's sort of wonky, but I don't think you can fake that, like, as a teenager. Like, it sounds different, being delivered by somebody who you know, like, knows about heartbreak in a more intimate way, you know, than like a teen pop star would.

• 1:11:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, you can absolutely feel that. Everything she sings, you can, you can feel. And I mean, that's just something you can't mass produce. And, and I think Nashville has a habit of underestimating the value of someone that can do that in a song. They're like, oh, like, hey, whatever, dude, you can just sing this song and bop around on stage. And that unfortunately works, like, for country radio. But it doesn't make songs and albums that we're still talking about however many years later.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  29 years later, yeah.

• 1:12:28Speaker 06

  Yikes. But yeah.

• 1:12:30Speaker 00

  Sorry, sorry.

• 1:12:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's all right. You get that every single episode, it's fine. Everyone's like, ooh.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  I do, yes. I have to confront how far away the past is. Yeah, it's very, it's disconcerting to me, very much so.

• 1:12:42Speaker 06

  Yeah. But it sticks with you. It sticks in your bones, you know?

• 1:12:46Speaker 00

  Of course, of course. Even in her early work, you know, from "The Fool" on, like, I can hear the tension between, like, as you say, the sort of traditional country that she's interested in, and the more pop-oriented country that, of course, Nashville is interested in. It's not like she's trying to be Shania Twain on like an arena level, it's not like she's being pushed in that direction, but there's a tension there, you know, between the traditional country sound and the crossover pop sound. Like, what's your sense of how LeAnn dealt with that conflict, you know, from the start?

• 1:13:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it seems like she's so musical and so follow the song. Like, I've heard her talk about, and we'll obviously get to, talking about "I Hope You Dance." But, you know, I heard her talk about a moment when she was encouraged to record like a version of it where she sounded less country. And I think she tried and failed because asking LeAnn Womack to sound even more less country than that song is like physically impossible. But I think she was down to sort of like try, you know, down to serve the song. So that is kind of like, when I think of her, I think of someone who's serving the

• 1:13:58Speaker 06

  song and like, definitely like not interested in the machinery of Nashville beyond the degree to which she had to, to like, get those songs out in the world.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  Right. What would that even mean, like, to sing a song less country? Is that primarily a question of like the twang, like the accent? Or like, what is, how do you sing a song less country if you are LeAnn, if you are LeAnn Womack?

• 1:14:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, clearly you can't because she couldn't, but yeah, I guess, like, I mean, slightly less twang, I guess, in general, and maybe the way you enunciate, I don't know. It seems

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:14:44Speaker 06

  difficult.

• 1:14:45Speaker 00

  Impossible, right.

• 1:14:46Speaker 06

  Impossible, yeah. Unless you're faking your country-ness, which some people, you know, have kind of taken on a little twang and they're like, oh, we have to make this country cool. I can just be who I was before.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  I can be normal, right, right, okay. You've written a book about women and country music. You know, I'm so excited for this book, Way Up Coming, about sort of 90s alternative rock. Like, is there secretly a lot of connective tissue between LeAnn Womack and, say, Fiona Apple, or Sheryl Crow, or Sarah McLachlan? Like, as a 90s teenager, you know, country music and alternative rock were two entirely separate universes that didn't blur together at all. Like, how wrong was I about that exactly?

• 1:15:32Speaker 06

  I mean, and I was that teenager too, and at the time, were entirely different universes for me, except like, at times when I didn't realize it, you know? But if you look, you know, I didn't realize at the time, like, the chicks were playing Lilith Fair, stuff like that.

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  Right, right, right.

• 1:15:54Speaker 06

  I didn't see the intersections between the two worlds. But I mean, if you look back, like, women doing shit the way they wanted to against a system built to keep them out or make it difficult, or have them adhere to what works best.

• 1:16:12Speaker 06

  In, you know, in a system dominated by patriarchy, uh, that is consistent, whatever genre you are in. Uh, so I've seen that more now as I've come, you know, come to look very closely at all of those things and all of those time periods, uh, as a older woman. Seeing that there's not that much difference between what LeAnn Womack had to go through to get the songs that she wanted to sing out there and, you know, Alanis or Fiona or Sheriff Crow or The Chicks or LeAnn Rimes or all of those, you know, um, it's all, it's all battling against the same machinery. It's just one has like a little more twang than the other.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. Um, so to talk about I Hope You Dance, like LeAnn has talked in interviews about, like, she knows that her fans, a lot of them, see this song as a very simple, a very inspirational song. She says it's happy and sunny, all tied up in a nice little package. But LeAnn says that she's always sung it, you know, from a slightly darker and more pessimistic, more melancholy place. She talks about how she sings it in a really melancholy way. Like, do you hear this song primarily as cheerful and idealistic? Or is this song, you know, a little sadder or a little more complicated than it appears?

• 1:17:35Speaker 06

  That has absolutely changed for me over time. And I remember

• 1:17:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:17:41Speaker 06

  when this song was huge, it was 2000, like, I was in college. At the time, and this song was everywhere, even where I was. I was in school in, in New York and, uh, and at the time I wanted the men, you know, if you're looking at it as a relationship song, I think it can be a lot of things. Um, but if I was looking at the people, you know, the relationships that were ending when I was at that age, at that, you know, I wanted them to, you know, go fuck off and have a horrible life. I hadn't like,

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:18:10Speaker 06

  I hadn't quite gotten to that period in life where I could be like, I hope you, you know, sit beside the ocean and, you know, um,

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:18:20Speaker 06

  So it wasn't quite that to me then. I'm sorry.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  It's, it's, it's fair. Tough but fair. Yeah.

• 1:18:28Speaker 06

  But as you grow and you have mature relationships, um, and you, and see it from that way, it actually, it, it is really beautiful. Like, I think a lot of people's first encounter with that song can be, if you were at a certain point in your life when it came out, that it was maybe a little bit cheesy. Um, but I love that she sings it from that place that's like, you know, you're not with me, but I hope you have this wonderful life that's full of these things. And, um, I've come to understand that song in that way as I've gotten older, but I don't think I did when it came out. That didn't mean I didn't like jam to it like everyone else. Um,

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:19:12Speaker 06

  But yeah, it, it, it's held different meaning as I've gotten older.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  It went from, I hope you get swallowed up by the ocean to, I hope that you still feel small when you stand behind the ocean. Yes, I, that, that's, that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful sentiment. Both of those sentiments are beautiful in their way. I, I,

• 1:19:33Speaker 06

  We all grow up, you know.

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  We do. Most of us do, you know, maybe not. I don't know. Yeah, no, most of us do. I, yes. Um, the line from this song, you know, the, the ocean line is always really striking to me, but also, "Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance" is always the line that gets me. Like, in all of LeAnn's work, but in maybe this song in particular, there's such a deep spirituality and like an awe to it. What I love about this song most is like, "I hope that you are awestruck by the universe." Like, is this song arguably like kind of a Christian rock song or just a Christian song as much as it's a country song?

• 1:20:16Speaker 06

  Yes, in the way that like, so many of the country songs that do that and do it well can be. I mean, you have now like, so much of that being woven through country music in this way that is not at all subtle, like, namely, like Jelly Roll, and you know, that's like,

• 1:20:36Speaker 00

  Oh, boy. Right, right.

• 1:20:37Speaker 06

  You know, just, yeah, hands up, like, let's turn it, that, that doesn't sound like praying. I don't know. I'm a Jew. I don't really know. But, um, and, and the thing is, I actually love a faith-based country song when it comes from that kind of place. That's like spiritual and loving and like, I think those songs are really beautiful. Dolly Parton wrote those songs and, and sung those songs. Um, LeAnn Womack has that connection to her faith and brings it into her music. I think that's really beautiful. I, I think we all can get down with that. Um, everybody wants people they love to, or loved ones to have a sense of wonder in the world and feel connection to

• 1:21:20Speaker 06

  spirituality or faith or whatever that is, even if it's not yours. Um, so that's, I think, when country music can do that so well. That's like the perfect example of country music melding those things together in a way that's not like Jelly Roll coming out every award show and being like, uh, like having a poster that says like, "Audience clap for Jesus" and that's all the song is. Sorry.

• 1:21:42Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. It's all right.

• 1:21:44Speaker 06

  But, yeah.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  He'll, he'll live.

• 1:21:48Speaker 06

  That never happens.

• 1:21:49Speaker 00

  He'll be okay.

• 1:21:50Speaker 06

  He'll be fine.

• 1:21:51Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah. It's, it's, it's inclusive. I Hope You Dance is sort of inclusive. It is inviting you in as opposed to sort of keeping you out if you don't have a very specific set of beliefs. Like, I, I think I get what you're saying.

• 1:22:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. And it also has this great, speaking of great lines, "If you're close to selling out, reconsider." Like, that was the one I remember so much from that time. Because it is like, in that idea of like a sellout, especially at that time period, um, I remember being like, where did that line come from? Like, who's she singing to? What, like, "You're close to selling out." Interesting. Um, I don't know. That's just a, like a little left turn in there, too.

• 1:22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, the 90s idea of selling out and like the, the reality bites of it all, like when getting a job was like selling out. Like, I, I have wondered, like, what does selling out specifically mean to LeAnn Womack in the year 2000? That's always, I, I agree with you completely. That line has always really fascinated me. Like, what do you think she means by that? Like, specifically, if there is a specific idea behind it?

• 1:22:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't know. Um,

• 1:23:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 06

  Is, like, is she talking about Nashville and musical decisions? Is it like,

• 1:23:08Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:09Speaker 06

  Is it just sort of this broader idea of like, cert, you know, putting your, your morals and values aside for something that's like, you know, an easy, quick, feel-good, um, happening in the moment? I don't know. But that, that's what makes like a great lyric, something that you're like,

• 1:23:27Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:23:28Speaker 06

  What does she mean by that? What, like, what does that have to do with the song? Who's this person that she's singing to? Like, um,

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:23:35Speaker 06

  I don't know. I love that one.

• 1:23:37Speaker 00

  So LeAnn has talked about I Hope You Dance as both a blessing and a curse in the sense that this is a huge hit, a crossover song, you know, her signature song, you know, but does it overshadow all the fantastic work that LeAnn Womack has been doing for decades now? Like, what might you miss about LeAnn Womack if this song is the primary thing that you know about her?

• 1:24:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a tricky one because on one hand, like all of these, you know, breakout songs from someone where it's kind of the outlier, um, it puts, it puts them in front of so many different people. You know, so everyone knows who LeAnn Womack is, I hope, or at least knows the song, but they don't know her whole catalog. Like, I would guess that if you would ask most people, "Do you know a set," not to be like, "Name one song guy," but like, if you ask someone who, "What's the second LeAnn Womack song that you know?" I don't, unless they're in Nashville or have good taste or like country music, they might not know that. Um,

• 1:24:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:24:41Speaker 06

  Which is a real shame because she has so much great music. I mean, one of the greatest country artists out there that we have. Um, although we're filing her, I guess, in Americana, in Americana now, which is how it goes. Um, but...

• 1:25:01Speaker 06

  It, yeah, it's that double edged sword. It's that it put LeAnn Womack in, you know, everybody's lives, but they're not, you know, maybe not going into The Way I'm Living, or The Lonely, The Lonesome, and The Gone, or like, um, because she's still making great albums. So hopefully, you know, they'll listen to this podcast and they'll be motivated to go back and listen to the wealth of LeAnn Womack, uh, material.

• 1:25:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. I wanted to ask about the Americana thing. Like, if you look, you know, it's Grammy nominations is an imperfect thing, but like, she starts out being nominated for Country Grammys, and more recently, she's being nominated for Americana Grammys. Like, what is, what's going on there? How is it that, like, a country artist, it seems to me that, like, Americana is what Nashville calls you when you get too good and too cool and too authentic for mainstream country. I'm on, am I on the right track there at all?

• 1:26:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, and it's funny, it's Americana's best week here in Nashville, so Americana on the brain. Um, yeah, we had, I was at the Americana Awards last night, and it was like, you know, Margot Price and Chris Stapleton with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Robert Plant, and like, um, Brandi Carlile, and it's this, and in the running joke at the Americana Awards is always like, what is Americana? Every single year, the Milk Heart and Kids who host it, like, that's the joke. Um, because no one can really define it. But it is like, and I feel a couple of different ways about it. On the one hand, it's just great that

• 1:26:44Speaker 06

  there's a place to put this music. Like, and I think that's how a lot of artists in it feel, is that like, if that's where you have to put Brandi Carlile, and that's where you have to put Margot Price, or whoever it is, or LeAnn Womack, then great, at least they're going somewhere for people to access them and find a community. Uh, because that's, I think, what a lot of the artists would really talk about, is the community that it brings. But on the other hand, like, LeAnn Womack is country to me. Uh, so when you take someone that is so purely country, Tyler Childers won Album of the Year at AmericanaFest last night for Snipe Hunter. Um, and he has won before for country records. Like, you

• 1:27:27Speaker 06

  don't need to force something that is country in Americana. That, to me, is a little bit frustrating. That is not the artist's fault whatsoever. Um, it is, you know, the way Nashville is, there's no place for LeAnn Womack anymore, because you're not going to play her on country radio, because she's above the age of 30, and a woman, and has, you know, songs that sound country. Um,

• 1:27:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:27:53Speaker 06

  I, I hope that maybe now, after, like, Choose in Texas, maybe there'll be room for bringing music that is, sounds like LeAnn Womack back into the country fold, because that should be, like, don't you want to claim country? That's so stupid that Nashville is like, oh, you could take LeAnn Womack, that's fine. Like, go ahead, Americana, take one of the greatest that we have, um, because we don't really know what to do with her. Like, that seems like a loss to me. I don't know.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  Uh, you mentioned Dolly Parton. Like, I was writing this episode in, in the middle, and when we find out that Dolly Parton died, and it just totally derailed me. Like, to, to start out, like, now we think of Dolly, and we have for years now, it seems, as this, this universally beloved, deified figure, like, the one person, the one American that everyone agrees on. But I'm curious how you saw that evolve, and like, where Dolly Parton was in the culture, in country music, and in the wider world in the late 90s, when LeAnn Womack was starting. Like, I remember Dolly being this super respected figure, but I also remember, like, all the late night talk show punchlines about her, a lot of what she was in on. But like, how, how did you see Dolly Parton's image and perception evolve,

• 1:29:06Speaker 00

  like, over the course of LeAnn's career?

• 1:29:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I had the exact same. I think my, my first encounters with Dolly Parton, that I at least remember, were on those late night talk shows. And like,

• 1:29:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:29:19Speaker 06

  being a butt of, butt of the joke, having to make jokes about her boobs, or her appearance, or, and I remember seeing her on some talk show, like, sitting there with my mom and being like, like, who is this woman? What is happening here? Um, like, making jokes about her boobs, you know, and like, how does she look like that? Why? Um, and that's something I only, you know, began to understand as I got older, and all the, like, subversive, amazing ways that Dolly Parton was using that appearance, and, you know, flipping that conversation at the time. But she was not on, you know, we, obviously, everyone loves Dolly Parton. We have, everyone has this, um, relationship with her now, that,

• 1:30:03Speaker 06

  where she is so beloved. Um, it's hard to talk about her in the past tense, but that wasn't always the case. And, uh,

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:30:13Speaker 06

  when I, you know, when I was first encountering her, she was that butt of the joke, and, and I was too young, I think, or too tied up in my own life to kind of understand what she was doing at the time. But she had to work against a culture that wanted to put her in that box. Um, and that's a pattern that we put, you know, put so many women through, not just in Nashville and country music, but far beyond that. Um, and I think a lot of women look to Dolly as their careers went, you know, went alongside her, for ways to navigate those, you know, those stones that people throw at you. Uh, whether it's

• 1:30:54Speaker 06

  your, you know, your appearance, or your capabilities, or your intelligence, or how loud or not loud you are in a room, or your convictions musically. Um, I think that's so much of what women, you know, like LeAnn Womack, like other women that grew, you know, were looking to Dolly for guidance, took from her.

• 1:31:13Speaker 00

  I, you know, The Fool, of course, you know, that's in 1997, that's two women, you know, the song is two women talking about a man, that's sort of a Jolene Extended Universe sort of thing. Like, I, in 1997, you know, what shadow is Dolly Parton casting, like, artistically, as a songwriter, as a singer, over someone, a young person like LeAnn Womack? Like, LeAnn's talked about growing up, you know, seeing Dolly do laundry detergent ads, you know, on the Porter Wagoner Show. Like, is, is Dolly Parton in 1997 someone that a young country star can even aspire to, or is she already sort of like this deified, untouchable figure for singers?

• 1:31:53Speaker 06

  I mean, I think too, of like, someone like Amarin Morris, or Mickey Guyton, people that were, you know, much younger at that point, like babies, basically, at that time. Um, still talk about Dolly Parton as that person, as that, like, encounter with songs and country songwriting. Because that's the funny thing about Dolly, is that there's so much to her world, and she brought so much love and humanitarian work and all that, that like, sometimes the conversation gets a little bit away from the actual songs, which is funny to say. Um, but at the end of the day, she was this incredible songwriter,

• 1:32:38Speaker 06

  and you do, I talk to women that say, you know, that, those, you know, I stole, uh, tapes out of my grandmother's shelf, you know, that she had recorded on VHS of Dolly Parton, and I watched that. Um, or, you know, I was going through my, my mother's and my grandmother's, or whoever's old records, and the Dolly Parton songs are the ones that stuck with me. Um, because if you're chasing music, and you're drawn to it, and you're chasing the song, like, that's gonna, that's gonna be there for you, that's gonna stick out for you. Um, because the songs are just too good.

• 1:33:17Speaker 00

  Uh, just to wrap up, you know, as you say, you know, if, if someone's sort of new to LeAnn Womack, if you only know the dance, I hope you dance to start with, you know, if you were doing the name three songs by LeAnn Womack thing, like, what is your personal favorite song of hers, or favorite album, or favorite era, I guess?

• 1:33:36Speaker 06

  That's a hard question. Um, I love 20 Years and Two Husbands Ago. Um,

• 1:33:42Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 1:33:44Speaker 06

  That's a favorite. I always think of that one, because like, what we were talking about in that LeAnn Womack came into public knowledge being a little bit more mature, older, and like, that's a song that has so much living under its belts. Um, which I love, and I love women, and I think a lot of her songs are like that, that have that kind of, you know, I have lived in, under, you know, I have a story before this, and, um, and I think that's really great, a great place to sing from, and maybe an underrepresented place to sing from. But if you're new, I mean, her most recent catalog, I know that,

• 1:34:26Speaker 06

  I, I don't usually go to the newer records, like, maybe that's not cooler, a cool to do. Um, but I think it's an incredible story to look at someone who has this long career, who had their first album out in 97, who had this huge hit in 2000, to say, she's doing some of her best work on her past few records, The Way I'm Living, The Lonely, Lonesome, and The Gone. Um, that is really special, and should be celebrated, to have someone who's still so artistically vibrant and engaged, and, you know, um, and writing, and that's really, like, something that you don't always see. I think because we don't

• 1:35:08Speaker 06

  always allow people the freedom to do that, she's not kind of like, trying to just continue the same path of like, what worked in the past. She's just trying to continuously evolve as an artist, and, and that's really exciting. And they're just great records.

• 1:35:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, this has been Wonderful, Marissa. Thank you so much for being here.

• 1:35:29Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:35:34Speaker 00

  Thanks very much to our guest this week, Marissa R. Moss. Thanks to our producers, Olivia Creary, Julianna Ress, Justin Sayles, and Chris Sutton. Animations and graphics by Chris Calliton. And special thanks to Cole Kushner, and of course, thanks to you for listening. And now, let's all go listen to I Hope You Dance by LeAnn Womack. We'll see you next week.

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