Girls With Guitars

Album: Tell Me Why (1993)
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Songfacts®:

  • This girl-power anthem tells the story of a teenager who falls in love… with music. While the other girls are preoccupied with cheerleading and sports stars, she's busy checking out riffs and memorizing chords. Wynonna, who was still a teen when she formed The Judds with her mom, Naomi, could certainly relate.

    "That song is kind of autobiographical," she said in a 1994 interview. "When I was 15, I learned that there was this wonderful thing called music. I didn't care about boys, I didn't really care about school that much, all I wanted to do was play music. I remember carrying my guitar everywhere I went. It got to be kind of a joke with everybody. It was like, 'Well, here comes Wynonna and her guitar.'"
  • Wynonna hoped the song would inspire a new crop of girls with guitars. "When I first heard that song, it reminded me how many millions of 15-year-old girls are there out there who have a gift in music," she explained. "To kind of inspire them, to give them the same kind of idea that you can be different when you're a teenager and not be popular and grow up like me and then get paid for being weird. That's kind of my anthem right now."
  • This was written by country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter, who was already a big star thanks to hits like "He Thinks He'll Keep Her," and could have recorded it herself. But she doesn't have any regrets about giving the tune to Wynonna. "I am not sorry. I am thrilled because I'm a huge fan of hers," she said in 1994. "As a songwriter, it was the most exciting day of my life when I found out that she was going to cut that song."
  • A rocking track about following your dreams was an ideal song for Wynonna at this point in her musical path as she'd just forged a successful solo career, starting with her previous album, Wynonna. This was the fifth single from her sophomore release, Tell Me Why. It peaked at #10 on the Country chart.
  • This features backing vocals from Naomi Judd and Lyle Lovett.
  • The second and third choruses begin with snippets of the famous guitar riffs from Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" and Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love," respectively. It also references Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing," with the closing lyric, "Get your money for nothin' and your guys for free."

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