Like A Hurricane by Kathy Mattea

Album: Untasted Honey (1987)

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Songfacts®:

This is the B-side to Kathy Mattea's hit "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses." Written by veteran country songwriter Pat Alger ("Unanswered Prayers") and Mark Daniel Sanders ("I Hope You Dance"), the song finds a heartbroken Mattea comparing her ex to a hurricane who swept into her life and blew it apart.
In a Songfacts interview, Alger explained that this tune inspired a big country hit he wrote with Garth Brooks: "The Thunder Rolls." Brooks was listening to "Like A Hurricane," and got inspired when he heard the lyric, "But in my heart there's a thunder rollin'." Said Alger: "He came in and said, 'What if we write a song about somebody who's cheating on his wife, and every time he does it, the thunder rolls.' And I kind of laughed."
The song opens with Mattea out on the road "a little bit south of West Virginia." Mattea is a West Virginia native, having been born in South Charleston.

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