“Wherever You Go”
Clint Black
Written by Clint Black and Hayden Nicholas
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
March 10, 1995
Clint Black earns his first No. 1 single of the year.
The Road to No. 1
After “A Good Run of Bad Luck” went No. 1, Black finished out the No Time to Kill album with the top five hit “Half the Man.” He then previewed his fifth studio album, One Emotion, with the top five hit “Untanglin’ My Mind,” which was co-written by Merle Haggard. The second single from this album returned Black to No. 1.
The No. 1
Clint Black had already written a masterpiece about alcoholism, so any song he released afterward was going to live in the long shadow of “Killin’ Time.”
“Wherever You Go” documents Black’s transition from the visceral to the cerebral. Instead of writing about clinging to the bottle from the inside out, he’s now placed himself outside of the situation, challenging the person who is bottoming out his medicine jars to acknowledge that the drinking is getting them nowhere.
It’s a dark and bitter record that reaches for a deeper meaning than the shallow metaphor will allow, despite some stellar singing from Black toward the end of the track that makes its ending more compelling than the rest of its runtime.
The Road From No. 1
We’ll go from darkness to light with his next No. 1 single, which is tailor made for summer radio.
“Wherever You Go” gets a B-.
Every No. 1 Single of the Nineties
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Black continues his slide down the musical mountain with this song. I just increasingly find his material less interesting the deeper he gets into his career.
As an aside, I realize I know absolutely nothing about Hayden Nicholas who co-wrote so many of Black’s songs.
It’s kind of a cool sounding record, overall. I especially like Clint singing in his lower register early in the verses and then going to higher notes later on. There’s also some nice fiddling. Unfortunately, there’s not much else about it that does much for me. I remember even as a kid in the mid 90’s not getting too excited about his then current hits, while still liking and enjoying his older stuff. I did like “Like The Rain,” though.
For me, with the exception of “Untanglin’ My Mind,” the One Emotion era is, by far, Black’s weakest period in the 90’s, and it’s definitely his weakest album of the decade, as well.