From old-time classics like “Ode to Billie Joe” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today” to 21st-century hits like “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and Luke Combs’s “Fast Car,” story songs are in country music’s blood.
They’re also what the Country Music Association awards when they appear on the Song of the Year ballot. I went through every nominee for the CMA Song of the Year (yes, I am a loser), from the award’s first year in 1967 through this year’s field, and read the lyrics. By my method, a song is counted as a story song if its verses form a single, connected sequence of events and narrate what happened rather than simply describe a feeling, a hypothetical, or a prediction.
Story songs are about a quarter of the nominees, but nearly four in ten of the winners. A story song is nearly twice as likely to win Song of the Year as anything else on the ballot.
The 2000s saw the greatest representation of story songs. They were 43% of nominees, and six of the ten winners told a story. The 1970s and 1990s were close behind, at 32% and 30% of nominees respectively.
During the bro country doldrums, voters had almost none to pick from (coincidence? I think not). In the 2010s, only six of 50 nominees were story songs, or 12%, and none of them won. From 2014 through 2017, there weren’t any on the ballot at all. A story song won in 2009 (“In Color”), and then not again until 2022 (“Buy Dirt”). Those twelve years are the longest dry spell in the data. The 1980s dipped to 12% too, with none nominated from 1986 to 1988, though that decade is remembered fondly for its neo-traditional revival.
Now they’re back. 29% of the SOTY category has been story songs so far (10 of 35 nominees), putting the decade on a par with the 1970s and 1990s, with three years still to play. It’s part of the reason I believe this decade will be remembered as critically and commercially on the same plane as those two.
This year, only one of the five nominees tells a story, but it’s a big one: Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas.” It’s also one of the oldest stories in country music, heartbreak told through the pull between Texas and Tennessee, a thread that runs from Jimmie Rodgers to Willie Nelson, Gene Watson, George Strait and Alan Jackson.
Telling a story won’t guarantee a CMA, but history says it’s a great way to improve your odds.
Source Data: CMA Song of the Year Story Song Nominees
