“Life as We Knew it'”
Kathy Mattea
Written by Walter Carter and Fred Koller
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
February 3, 1989
Kathy Mattea once observed that many of her most enduring hits have fallen short of the top, while she’s had No. 1 singles that are largely forgotten. She kicks off a career-best streak of three consecutive chart-toppers with the best No. 1 single that went down the memory hole.
“Life as We Knew it” is a gorgeous and intimate ballad that captures the moment that a woman leaves her man behind. I love that the line is “we,” and not “I,” when she sings that “this is the last time we’ll call this place home,” given the implication that he’s waking up alone in a house that is now his alone. Unless he’s moving out a day or two later, of course.
Mattea’s vocal is one of her most expressive on record, especially among her earlier albums, previewing the raw emotion of future singles like “Where’ve You Been” and “A Few Good Things Remain.” She communicates a thoughtful clarity about how they share the blame for throwing away the life that they had built together, while appreciating the opportunity to be on her own again and return to Carolina after too much time away.
You can hear in records like this one how country music was cornering the aging boomer audience that was craving the insightful singing and songwriting that they loved from the pop and rock of that generation’s youth. I’ve often heard it described as these listeners had no choice, as the pop and rock markets were chasing youthful audiences. But that framework undersells the caliber of singing and songwriting that was coming out of Nashville at the time. I’m not sure there ever more talented singers, songwriters, and musicians working at the same time and in the same place as there were in the last two decades of the twentieth century.
Maybe that’s why even a song as great as this one, which went all the way to No. 1, is a footnote in the distinguished catalog of one of this era’s greatest artists.
“Life as We Knew it'” gets an A.
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It’s sad that such a great song has been forgotten. I have never in my lifetime heard this song on the radio. Not in recurrent play as a child or on our classic country station today and that’s a pitty. When I got Kathy’s Definitive Hits collection years ago was the first time I heard it and it was instant love at first listen! So much emotion and details! I have since went down the Kathy Mattea rabbit hole and own all her albums ! What an artist with great taste in songs, similar to Emmylou before her!
I have the vaguest memories of this song from the late 80s, but given that I was too young at the time to have any idea what the song was about, today was effectively the first time I’ve heard it. Any record is better if it’s sung by Kathy Mattea and this one is no exception, but it’s well-crafted and mysterious enough that it would be interesting even if Chris Janson sang it. The descriptive nature of the opening verse sets us up for a much different song than we’d actually get as it seems like the couple is moving to the Carolina mountains until the anvil is dropped with “when you wake up alone”. The song becomes mysterious when Mattea sings how “I still can’t believe we threw it away” when she’s the one leaving. This seems to imply either one-sided or mutual infidelity, or else the narrator simply refusing to accept fault for being the one to walk away. The fact that she’s leaving her number because “you always called when you had to be gone” suggests either jealousy or immaturity on the part of the husband and kind of begs for a response single from his perspective. As straight forward as the song seemingly is, there’s a fair amount to unpack here.
It is rather astonishing that this song has been in purgatory for 35 years having gotten to #1. I’m pretty confident that I’ve never once heard it since 1989. If not for this feature, I’d probably never have listened to this song as an adult. Meanwhile, one of Mattea’s most iconic songs (“Where’ve You Been”) only barely cracked the top-10 the following year. Radio has always been weird.
Grade: A-
Our local country stations WPCV (97.5 Bartow) and WWKA (K-92 FM Orlando) both gave this song considerable airing as an oldie for a few years but after about 1995 both stations quit playing the song – I called K-92 to play it on their oldies show (and they did) but the person taking the request informed me that it had been several years since they received a request for the song. Perhaps tastes had changed just enough for this song to get lost in the shuffle
Mattea’s nineties material was so much more muscular, too. She didn’t do much of her eighties stuff except for Five & Dime, Eighteen Wheels, and Where’ve You Been at most shows. I have a greater appreciation for this song now because she’s really starting to sing like the Mattea I became a fan of in the early nineties.
I saw her live for the first time around 94 and then many, many times after. She sang this song only once in all of the shows I went to, and quit after the first chorus, ending with “this song as we knew it, ended right now.” It was funny.
I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Mattea perform live. But if I had and she elected to exclude this lovely song from her set list, I’m pretty sure I would have left disappointed. It’s always been one of my favorites from her.
Mattea’s vocals, the lyrics she has to work with, and the instrumentation are all so crystalline and pure in this number. Taken together, they create an insanely delicate and fragile sound.
Mattea’s vocals infuse the story with a world-wise warmth and empathy along with a haunting regret. And she does it without any vocal theatrics, tricks, or drama. The sincerity contract is fully intact here for me as a listener.
We get such lovely details about a home in the opening lines,ranging from returned keys to caged cats to U-Hauls to mother’s to Ashville, North Carolina. Walter Carter and Fred Koller created an emotional story every bit as loaded and full as that moving truck ready to leave.
Then there is the instrumentation. The sparkling Dobro and mandolin runs provide such quiet strength. The effect of all the acoustic playing sounds like something approaching bluegrass. It all sounds so intimate and hushed, perfectly suited to the narrator pulling away from her life and a now-ex-husband who is still asleep.
Can a song that has largely been forgotten be a classic?
If so, this is it.