“It Sure is Monday”
Mark Chesnutt
Written by Dennis Linde
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 14, 1993
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
August 6, 1993
Mark Chesnutt returns to the top with a song about being tired.
The Road to No. 1
After topping the charts with “I’ll Think of Something,” Chesnutt went top five with “Bubba Shot the Jukebox” and “Ol’ Country.” His third studio album then produced three consecutive No. 1 hits.
The No. 1
The first of those is by far the weakest, but that’s not as heavy a criticism in this case, as the next two are genuine classics.
But as for “It Sure is Monday,” it sure is…pleasant enough?
As Dennis Linde songs go, it’s fairly tame. The dude is tired because he partied too hard over the weekend, and now he’s got to chug down coffee to get through the day.
And that’s it.
Chesnutt being the singer of this keeps the record from being as silly as it could’ve been, but also keeps it from being particularly interesting.
But stay tuned. He’s going to knock the next two out of the park.
The Road From No. 1
The title track of Almost Goodbye is up next, and it will be climbing the charts as Chesnutt wins the CMA Horizon Award in the fall of 1993.
“It Sure is Monday” gets a B-.
Every No. 1 Single of the Nineties
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This song seems to be lost between the fun of the past wild weekend and the reality of the upcoming week. It doesn’t work fully as a working person’s anthem or a send-up of partying. It just sounds tired and confused.
I do like the garbled, distorted guitar sounds and the details of laying out in his truck bed with the twitches.
Maybe the song is brilliant?
After football watching today, I know I’ll be “feeling” this song tomorrow.
I actually love this song and put among my favorite of his singles.
This isn’t one of my favorites from Chesnutt, but it’s a fun listen from time to time. I suspect this will be a recurring theme for me in quite a few of the next several entries going forward.
Lyrically, I like how it’s relatable to many who dread having to start the week all over again after having a lot of fun on the weekend. I actually used to really like this one as a teen, partly because I could relate to it during my high school years of having to get up way too early and go back to school on Mondays (high school wasn’t exactly my favorite, either). I had Mark’s Greatest Hits album then, and I always liked this song on it.
However, as I got into exploring deeper into Mark Chesnutt’s discography, this one didn’t hold up quite as well. While I like the lyrics and melody, the production hasn’t aged as well for me, and I find it a bit too “line dancy” for my tastes. I also never really cared for the sound of that distorted sound of the guitar in which Peter mentions, and it’s one of my peeves when it comes to various other uptempo cuts from 1993 and 1994 (Aaron Tippin’s “Call Of The Wild” is another that comes to mind with that guitar sound).
I also think Almost Goodbye is one of his weaker albums, despite it being one of his most commercially successful. I agree that he fares a lot better on the next two singles, though.
Dang, I still really wish “Ol’ Country” went number one!
I do like that distorted guitar sound.