“One More Last Chance”
Vince Gill
Written by Vince Gill and Gary Nicholson
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
October 9, 1993
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
October 1, 1993
Gill takes a walk on the wild side.
The Road to No. 1
We’re still in that ongoing streak of ten consecutive No. 1 singles from Vince Gill. This is the sixth.
The No. 1
Vince Gill takes a walk on the wild side, and it’s less Marky Mark and more Hooray For Everything in its execution.
Your mileage may vary, but for me, Vince Gill singing about being “a good old boy making noise” and heading down to the bar on a John Deere tractor because his wife hid his car keys is kind of ridiculous.
Gill avoided the “you’re making light of alcoholism” criticism that dogged Toby Keith when he released “You Ain’t Much Fun” a little later in the decade, and I don’t attribute that to changing sentiments about the subject. Not enough time had passed.
It’s just that you could believe that Toby Keith was coming home drunk off his behind and collapsing at the foot of the stairs. With Vince, it’s more like an homage to the hard-living country stars of days gone by, right down to the George Jones cameo at the end of the music video, which suggests that Gill is being distracted by his golf buddies, not his drinking buddies.
Gill is charming enough on the record to pull it off, and leans into the humor with some great lines like his wife waiting up with “a good book in her left hand and a rolling pin in the right,” and her taking his glasses away “’cause she knows that I can’t see.” It’s enough to keep the proceedings shy of becoming a full blown novelty record, which had a better chance of happening than it being taken seriously as a drinking and partying anthem.
The Road From No. 1
There is a fifth and final single on deck from I Still Believe in You, and it will be released following Gill’s dominance at the 1993 CMA Awards, where he hosted solo for the first time and took home five awards: Entertainer, Male Vocalist, Song, Album, and Vocal Event.
“One More Last Chance” gets a B.
Every No. 1 Single of the Nineties
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Next: Clay Walker, “What’s it to You”
Exhibit “A” that Gill could still send songs not in his wheelhouse right out of the yard.
He sounds more reverential than revolting describing a man with a drinking problem because he is having fun role-playing and story-telling. This song is no dour tale rife with warnings and moral applications. It is fun and light-hearted, a nod to a less than perfect country music family and the family tradition of hard living and questionable choices that comes with it.
This song always sounds alive and fresh to my ears. A real, honest gem.
Again, this is not necessarily one of my favorites of Vince’s singles, but it’s still a pretty fun listen nonetheless, and it still gets a chuckle from me every now and then, especially from those humorous lines Kevin highlighted. There’s some nice guitar picking from Vince featured throughout, as well. I actually can’t hear this one without thinking about the video, which is why I never thought much of the actual lyrics about a guy who can’t stay away from the bars. Instead, I always picture Vince hanging out and goofing off with his golfing buddies, lol. Besides the Possum cameo at the end (which still makes me laugh today), I also like the sound of the multiple golf balls being hit at the very start.
This is one I actually happened hear on the radio when it was new, and it made it on to the only country tape I recorded in the Summer of 1993 (and the last country tape I would make until 1996). One day I just decided to revisit country radio and make a tape from it since it had been a while since I listened to country radio regularly. However, instead of our main country station, which played all the currents hits plus older recurrents, I ended up on the new station in our area that mostly played upbeat/uptempo country songs (which was likely inspired by the dance craze going on back then). About halfway through recording the tape (while Vince’s song was playing, actually), I remember getting kind of bored with the lack of variety and change in mood/tempo and having the misconception that this is what ALL country stations were playing now. I reckon that even as an eight year old, I still needed my ballads, lol. However, in the past decade or so, I’ve really gotten to enjoy most of what I put on that tape, and I especially find it a pretty good tape to play when I’m in more of an upbeat mood or when the weather is warmer. That tape includes “Country Club” by Travis Tritt, “Prop Me Up Beside The Jukebox” by Joe Diffie, “Chattahoochee” by Alan Jackson, “Hearts Are Gonna Roll” by Hal Ketchum, “Wild Man” by Ricky Van Shelton, “It Won’t Be Me” by Tanya Tucker, “One More Last Chance” by Vince Gill, “Texas Tattoo” by Gibson/Miller Band, “Brand New Man” by Brooks & Dunn, “Reno” by Doug Supernaw, “Working Man’s PhD” by Aaron Tippin, “The Thunder Rolls” by Garth Brooks, “If I Didn’t Love You” by Steve Wariner, “Every Little Thing” by Carlene Carter, and “I Want You Bad (And That Ain’t Good) by Collie Raye. Some of these songs even bring back good memories from that brief time I returned to country in the Summer of ’93. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve stuck with country radio if I had continued to listen to our regular station that had more variety in songs.
Btw, this was actually also one of my step dad’s favorite Vince songs. I remember this song being on the radio in the kitchen on one morning and him singing along to the line “First she hid my glasses, cause she knows that I can’t see.” lol He always liked that rollin’ pin bit in the beginning, as well. :)