Every year for the past few years I have designated a single song as my "song of the year" or SOTY. Just one song, which is why the title of this piece is "My Song of the Years" rather than "My Songs of the Year". I figured I would write them down before I forget them.
2023 Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, I Remember Everything
Like Just Like That, when I first heard this when it came out in August I immediately said "that's my song of the year" and nothing displaced it. This is a co-write between Bryan and Musgraves with such powerful images! "Labrador hangin' out the passenger door" evokes an exact picture of Bryan's character. The clincher is "I wish I didn't, but I do, remember every moment on the nights with you". This won a Best Country Duo/Group Performance Grammy.
2022 Bonnie Raitt, Just Like That
When I first heard this poignant song a year ago I immediately tagged it as my SOTY and nothing else came out last year to displace it. When she won the Grammy for Song of the Year in the General category for this song, beating out songs by Adele, Beyonce and Taylor Swift, no one was more shocked than Bonnie Raitt herself!
2021 Allison Russell, Persephone
Outside Child was my favorite album of the 2021 and either Persephone or Nightflyer could be my SOTY. Nightflyer was nominated for Grammys in Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance. In the Americana Music Awards, Persephone was nominated as Song of the Year (losing out to Brandi Carlile's Right on Time) but Outside Child won Album of the Year.
2020 The Panhandlers, West Texas in My Eye
This supergroup of Texas singer/songwriters (Josh Abbott, William Clark Green, John Baumann and Cleto Cordero of Flatland Cavalry) came together at Bruce Robison's Next Waltz studio in Lockhart to record my favorite record of 2020, written by Charlie Stout. It comes with an excellent video.
2019 Hayes Carll, Jesus and Elvis
This true story about Lala's Little Nugget bar in Austin has some great lines like "the King of Kings and the King of Rock 'n' Roll".
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