As an avid country music hobbyist, I find it significantly charming when connections between country songs carry through like a sequel to a cherished original.
George Strait’s “The Chair,” — the original in this story — was released in 1985 and still graces country music radio nearly 35 years later. The story is sweet and unique, filled with dialogue that puts the listener right in the conversation, as if he or she is sitting in the chair on the other side, close enough to be in earshot. The most unique feature of this song is that the dialogue is actually a monologue. The listener only hears one side of the conversation. It is the man speaking and asking questions to the woman, whose answers, by the lines following the one before, are inferred. The most quaint feature of the song is the opening and the close. Both bookend the plot beautifully. The man approaches a woman in a chair at a bar and is strategic with his hello. He says to her, politely, that she is in his seat but that the one next to his is open. They share the space and get to talking (like any good country song does). He gradually asks her to dance, asks if he can buy her a drink, all the classics. Between the one-sided dialogue and the build of questions that are compounding, the two are hitting it off. The last verse suits the song in the perfect bookend before the credits roll. The man admits to the woman that that never was his chair and it was an opportunity to introduce himself to her. The fact that the song is called “The Chair” is quite the meet-cute in itself.
Enter stage left Cody Johnson’s ‘Half a Song’, which was released just over 30 years later. The first verse of Johnson’s song starts a bit more literally, but using some liberties and imagination, one can count ‘Half a Song’ as the perfect counterpart compliment to Strait’s ‘The Chair.’
I enjoy drawing connections between songs, almost as if it’s a continued conversation throughout time. Imagine the moment after the pleasantries in Strait’s song when she agrees to a dance. Enter in Johnson’s song, which is a contemporary yet traditional country song representing how much of a connection can be made within half of a song. When the band is playing and the two are out on the dance floor sharing space and gliding personally along the floor, a lot can be felt, understood and experienced in half a song’s time. The beauty of the song, just like Strait’s, is that the last verse brings the song full circle, when the next song starts.