Young Love (Strong Love)

Album: River Of Time (1989)
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Songfacts®:

  • Written by Nashville songwriters Paul Kennerley and Kent Robbins, The Judds' 13th #1 Country hit chronicles the romance of a young couple, from their first encounter to their early days of domestic bliss with a new home and baby.
  • Brent Maher, The Judds' producer, stopped by Kennerley's house before heading on summer vacation and found the songwriter plucking out the early stages of the song in his garage.

    "He started strumming: 'She was sittin' cross-legged on the hood of her Ford/Filin' down her nails with an emery board.' He started rattlin' off the whole first verse," he recalled in the Billboard Book Of #1 Country Hits. "It was a picture-perfect scenario of what used to go on - and it still goes on, like in our little town here of Franklin [Tennessee]. Every Friday and Saturday night, I can drive around Franklin Square, and it's full of kids sitting' on top of the pickups, checkin' each other out."

    Maher thought the song would be perfect for The Judds, but Kennerley, who penned two previous chart-toppers for the duo ("Have Mercy" and "Cry Myself To Sleep") was stuck. "I knew the layout of the song and what was happening, but I couldn't get the meat and potatoes of the lyric, all that detail stuff that needed doing," the songwriter explained. "I just couldn't focus on it."

    Kennerley's publisher suggested he team up with Kent Robbins, who wrote the #1 hit "Love Is Alive" for The Judds.

    "I jumped right in," Robbins said. "Paul had that goin', the first two lines. When I heard that, I went 'O-kay.' Over about three days there, we came up with all those verses. It's sort of a long story - the record's about 4:20."
  • Originally titled "Young Love," it was changed to "Young Love (Strong Love)" on the Billboard chart to differentiate it from Sonny James' 1957 classic "Young Love."
  • River Of Time, The Judds' fifth studio album, peaked at #2 on the Country Albums chart, making it their first release (aside from their holiday album) to miss the top spot.

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