“Baby Blue”
George Strait
Written by Aaron Barker
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
July 1 – July 8, 1988
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 6, 1988
This song gets harder to write about with time.
“Baby Blue” is a song about the love of your life brightening up your world and then going away for good. Strait’s recording of it served as a tribute to his young daughter who had passed away a year earlier in a tragic accident.
Strait is known for his understated delivery, yet you can hear him trying to hold it together, especially in the live performance of the song embedded below. Here is the consummate professional having to navigate a horrific personal tragedy in the public eye, and as always, his music does the talking.
Listening to “Baby Blue,” we meet a beautiful soul and grieve alongside the man who lost her. He has to make us fall in love with her in one verse and he does, leaving us just as heartbroken when she departs. It would be powerful without knowing the back story. Knowing it, it’s painfully beautiful.
We’re getting ready to launch our twentieth anniversary this summer. I was still a young man when I started this site. My dad was still alive, I hadn’t met my son, and my grandsons were far off into the future. The distance from which I was able to listen to this record has vanished. I couldn’t really imagine the hurt of this record back then. Now, I don’t want to.
What a tribute it is to this man’s talent and character that he could find a way to turn such darkness into a little bit of light.
“Baby Blue” gets an A.
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I recently listed the top females with the most #1 Hot County Songs. Now I’ll list the all-time list.
George Strait – 44
Conway Twitty – 40
Merle Haggard – 38
Ronnie Milsap – 35
Alabama – 33
Charley Pride – 29
Eddy Arnold – 28
Alan Jackson – 26
Tim McGraw – 26
Dolly Parton – 25
George is third in terms of total weeks at #1 behind Eddy Arnold and Webb Pierce. Both Twitty and Strait were recording during the “Spin-o-Rama” era in which songs mostly lasted one week at the top
I’m not sure how it’s possible that I didn’t already know that this song was a tribute to Strait’s deceased young daughter but finding it out makes one of my favorite of his ballads pack that much more of a punch. I’d certainly heard that he lost a daughter but must not have been paying enough attention at age 10 to have heard anyone connect the dots. Watching that performance on “Austin City Limits” reinforces his professionalism that he managed to hold it together when it was clear he was on the verge of a breakdown.
I said in my first George Strait review that, at least for me, he had a better batting average with his hits from the 80s than the 90s. This was particularly true in the late 80s when he scored some of his most iconic hits like this one, where his interpretative prowess was paired with consistently great and diverse material. While George was able to sell playful uptempo material like “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” and “Am I Blue?”, he always seemed best suited to smooth melodies with a subtle twang as he did here. This one always seemed just a little more intimate and personally felt than the rest, and now I know why.
Grade: A
Love this song, but I totally agree with you Kevin, it hits differently when you’ve lost someone. For me it’s my dad. It gets more bearable in some ways but I don’t know if it ever gets easier.
Another A+ song from Georege. And just think: its not even his best song whose title begins with Baby. If memory serves, that song should be coming soon
A+ and not even his best song whose title begis with Baby. If memory serves, that’ll be coming up soon.
I don’t know where the writer of this article is getting the info on this song, Baby Blue, but the songwriter of the song, Aaron Barker, has long ago de-bunked the story that the song was written about George Strait’s deceased daughter, Jenifer Lyn. Baby Blue was written about one of Mr. Barker’s past girlfriends years before Jenifer died and is NOT ABOUT HER. You can check it out yourself. I saw an interview with Mr. Barker and he corrected the record himself.
Baby Blue is NOT about George’s daughter. Aaron Barker, the songwriter, de-bunked that story years ago. The song is about one of his girlfriends and it was writer years before Jenifer died.
My understanding is that the song was recorded with Jennifer in mind, not that it was written about her.
This is a simple song about simple feelings.
Songs that deny the details, and blur the boundaries, of a loss, however, offer more opportunity for listeners to see themselves in the story.
“Baby Blue” sighs and breathes in ways significantly different than say Conway Twiity’s “That’s My Job.”
Here, the pretty melody and beautiful vocals elevate a striking song of subtlety and suggestion to a universal observation about grief and hurt.
It is a gorgeous performance, full of both aching and adoration.
For me, Strait cannot step wrong.