Ten Favorite Country General Questions: How Blue (#3)

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Here's another question from the list of my favorite country songs that have a question for their title. I can pretty much guarantee that today's song will not make the top ten of John Roberts' favorite songs with "blue" in the title (the "Song Sung Blue" countdown...make sure you read it!). So I guess it's up me to highlight this one! #3: How Blue - Reba McEntire I am not a Reba McEntire fan. It isn't that I don't think she doesn't belong in the Country Music Hall of Fame -- she absolutely does. With several #1 records, a "household name" of sorts, and even her own TV sitcom (Reba), the woman is immensely popular. She's just not my cup of tea. The comments about this song, the one song of hers I not only like, I love, pretty much explain why I'm not a big fan. People, critics and fans alike, have labeled this the "most country-sounding single" that McEntire ever released. That's my problem with her. Yeah, she may be from Oklahoma, but that doesn't automatically make her country. The late Michael Been, front man of one of my favorite college rock bands of the 80s, The Call, was also from Oklahoma. McEntire's version, for example, of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" makes Vicki Lawrence's original sound like a Hank Williams song in comparison. And "Whoever's in New England"? Puh-leeze. But oh, this song. The great acoustic guitar opening goes into a fiddle and steel-driven song that has a twinge of that Western swing that came from Oklahoma. Dang, but I love this song. And a PS: just over 26 years ago, on March 16, 1991, Reba McEntire lost her entire band in a tragic plane crash in San Diego. Her album For My Broken Heart was dedicated to them. This song came from a younger, happier time in Reba's life, and I ache that she had to literally have the question in this song title answered. How Blue Written by John Moffatt Recorded by Reba McEntire From My Kind of Country, 1984 There ain't no relief for this missing you grief: