For several years, the Love Songs series from Legacy Recordings has been making it easy for lazy people to look romantic. But this year’s batch features something that isn’t all sugar cubes and gumdrops – the notoriously stormy relationship between country giants George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Unlike previous Love Songs releases, this one casts a dark, cynical shadow. Their marriage, which lasted from 1969-1975, was allegedly crippled by Jones’ infamous alcohol problem, and the evident pain in Wynette’s voice during their duets is enough to show that all wasn’t well.
The compilation opens with “The Ceremony,” which puts the couple’s wedding vows to music. Hearing Jones sing, “Yes, I’ll take this woman/She’ll be mine forever,” is a bitter pill to swallow. Other titles, such as “If Loving You Starts Hurting Me” and “Even The Bad Times Are Good,” put the smelling salts of real life under the nose of the fairy tale love song. Much like Wynette’s trademark hit “Stand By Your Man,” her vocals on Love Songs bring lyrics to life, taking hopeful couplets and injecting them with genuine remorse. Tammy could sing the phone book and make it bittersweet.
This edition of Love Songs is not exactly filled with Cupid’s arrows, but it’s romantic in a desperate, passionate, human way. After all, what’s more realistic: a turbulent, failed marriage, or Celine Dion singing about magical worlds where couples never have problems? If you want to feel the bad with the good, listen to George and Tammy belt out the lines “If loving you starts hurting me/It would still be worth all the pain.” Just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Appeared in the January 15, 2004, issue of Artvoice.