“Cathy’s Clown”
Reba McEntire
Written by Don Everly
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
July 7, 1989
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
July 29, 1989
Reba McEntire’s final No. 1 single of the decade is also her final No. 1 single with Jimmy Bowen as her co-producer.
Bowen legendarily blocked McEntire from recording “Fancy,” given its subject matter. It would end up the centerpiece of her first post-Bowen album and her signature hit.
Somehow he signed off on this Everly Brothers cover, and it is easily the worst No. 1 single of Reba McEntire’s lengthy career. The Everly original is a song of stark defiance, where a man finds his grit and refuses to be Cathy’s clown anymore. McEntire rewrites it into a ballad where she’s pouting over the guy who is still very much Cathy’s clown.
So where the Everlys sing this:
I gotta stand tallYou know a man can’t crawlWhen he knows you’re tellin’ lies and he hears ’em passing byHe’s not a man at all
Reba sings this:
You gotta stand tallYou know a man can’t crawlWhen you let her tell you lies and you let them pass you byYou’re not a man at all
It’s this bizarre spectacle where she’s trying to win a man’s heart by pointing out his emasculation, then gently reassuring him that she’s even more pathetic and weak than he is, so “Pick me!!!!”
An unmitigated disaster. But her next visit to the top kicks off her imperial era, so it all worked out in the end.
“Cathy’s Clown” gets an F.
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