Papa Loved Mama

Album: Ropin' The Wind (1991)

Songfacts®:

  • While Papa's away, Mama will play, so the story goes in this fast-paced country tune that has a trucker taking revenge on his unfaithful wife and her lover. The fourth single from Garth Brooks' third album, the song was inspired by a newspaper story of a semi-tractor crashing into a seedy motel. "I mean, it's buried, the roof's down and everything," Brooks recalled in his 2017 book, The Anthology Part 1: The First Five Years. "Now I don't know if the trucker just fell asleep and hit the place or what. I don't think it was planned like a murder or anything. But it gave us the ingredients for a song."
  • Brooks already had all the songs for Ropin' The Wind, the last cut being a cover of Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight," when he brought the idea for "Papa Loved Mama" to Kim Williams, his co-writer on "New Way To Fly." It came together quickly and they loved it so much they decided to include it on the album, bumping the Cline cover to The Chase.
  • This peaked at #3 on the Country chart.
  • The chorus is taken from a Carl Sandburg poem:

    Papa loved mama
    Mama loved men
    Mama's in the graveyard
    Papa's in the pen
  • David Allan Coe covered this on his 1994 album The Perfect Country And Western Song.
  • Brooks distinguished himself from other "hat acts" coming up in early '90s country music by incorporating elements of '70s and '80s rock into his sound. On Ropin' The Wind, he took a gamble and covered Billy Joel's "Shameless," which paid off when it went to #1 on the Country chart. The album, which debuted at #1 in the US, helped usher Brooks - and country music - into the mainstream.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater RevivalFact or Fiction

Is "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" about Vietnam? Was John Fogerty really born on a Bayou? It's the CCR edition of Fact or Fiction.

Randy Houser

Randy HouserSongwriter Interviews

The "How Country Feels" singer talks Skynyrd and songwriting.

Dave Mason

Dave MasonSongwriter Interviews

Dave reveals the inspiration for "Feelin' Alright" and explains how the first song he ever wrote became the biggest hit for his band Traffic.

Randy Newman

Randy NewmanSongwriting Legends

Newman makes it look easy these days, but in this 1974 interview, he reveals the paranoia and pressures that made him yearn for his old 9-5 job.

Female Singers Of The 90s

Female Singers Of The 90sMusic Quiz

The ladies who ruled the '90s in this quiz.

Supertramp founder Roger Hodgson

Supertramp founder Roger HodgsonSongwriter Interviews

Roger tells the stories behind some of his biggest hits, including "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song."