Every #1 Country Single of the Eighties: Lorrie Morgan, “Out of Your Shoes”

“Out of Your Shoes”

Lorrie Morgan

Written by Patti Ryan, Sharon Spivey, and Jill Wood

Radio & Records

#1 (1 week)

December 8, 1989

The seventies and eighties had produced some prominent second generation country stars, with Hank Williams Jr. becoming a superstar and Rosanne Cash making her and Johnny the first father and daughter to release gold-selling country albums.

The nineties country boom would produce two platinum-selling country music daughters, and it was Lorrie Morgan who broke through first. The daughter of Country Music Hall of Famer and Opry legend George Morgan, Lorrie was an Opry member herself for several years before her breakthrough on RCA.

While recording for another label earlier in the decade, she’d resisted pressure to abandon the Opry scene and hang out with the cool young artists of the day. Her insistence on sticking to an approach grounded in the Nashville Sound eventually paid off, as she signed with RCA Nashville and earned her first top twenty hit with “Trainwreck of Emotion.”

Her next single, “Dear Me,” went top ten, setting the stage for her next two singles to each top a different chart in a different decade. She closes out the eighties with her Radio & Records No. 1 single “Out of Your Shoes,” which goes down as smoothly as a Jeannie Seely torch ballad, but keeps its storyline firmly planted in modernity. She goes out on the town with her best friend, and all eyes are on them, but the guy she has her eye on is going home with that friend instead.

She’s not bitter or even terribly jealous. She just feels a sense of longing for a one night stand that could’ve been. It really does set the stage for the nineties, doesn’t it? The maturity and sexuality of both women are taken for granted, as is the fact that their friendship is obviously going to be solid in the morning. Morgan was born to sing records like this, and I think it showcases her talent better than any of her nineties No. 1 singles, which are all uptempo hits.

She wouldn’t top the charts with a ballad again, but she’d carry the torch song tradition well into the nineties with records like “I Guess You Had to Be There,” “Good as I Was to You,” and “Something in Red.” After you read about the upbeat hits in our Every No. 1 Single of the Nineties feature, do a deeper dive into her later ballads. You’ll find it deeply rewarding.

“Out of Your Shoes” gets an A.

[This is the final new No. 1 single covered in Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties. Highway 101’s “Who’s Lonely Now” kicks off our Nineties series below.] 

Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties

Previous: Shenandoah, “Two Dozen Roses” |

Next: Highway 101, “Who’s Lonely Now”

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1 Comment

  1. Thank you Kevin. Another wonderful decade covered. Still have my 90’s playlist on my phone and now I got a huge 80’s playlist. Hopefully you take a nice break before diving into the 2000’s which I’m very excited about seeing that it’s the decade I really grew up on through my teens. A lot of positive memories attached to 06-10 years especially.

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