Year in Review: The 20 Best Country and Americana Songs of 2020
For many of us, 2020 was a year of soul-searching and contemplation, of confronting sins and flaws, and of expressing gratitude for what we have. Songwriters in the country and Americana sphere tapped into all of that in their work, delivering songs that both reflected and inspired. Artists like Mickey Guyton, Tré Burt, and Jimmie Allen probed racial inequality or police violence; Hailey Whitters and John Prine petitioned us to savor every moment; and Swamp Dogg asked for one more trip around the sun. Other songs, like Margo Price’s “I’d Die for You,” were notable for the emotion with which they were performed. These are the 20 best of the year.
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Chris Stapleton, ‘Starting Over’
Few artists do simple as well as Stapleton. Here, a gently strummed acoustic, plainspoken lyrics about a new beginning, and that touched-by-God voice made for a hopeful country anthem just when we needed it most. —J.H.
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Dan + Shay, ‘I Should Probably Go to Bed’
With vocal harmonies stacked to the moon, orchestral synths and Dan Smyer’s meticulous production, Dan + Shay made their bid for country’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They nearly pull it off too, delivering one of the year’s most thrilling and immersive listening experiences. —J.H.
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Stephanie Lambring, ‘Joy of Jesus’
Singer-songwriter Stephanie Lambring takes a lacerating look at evangelical Christianity in “Joy of Jesus,” addressing a Trump supporter who calls women sluts and a mother who sends her gay teenager to conversion therapy. “Is that the joy of Jesus?” she sings, her voice low and mournful, bitterly reflecting on all the harm done in the name of the faith in which she was raised. —J.F.
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The War and Treaty, ‘Five More Minutes’
Using an Al Green-referencing horn riff and a surging rock chorus, Michael and Tanya Trotter are at their very best as they trade off vocals in this surging three-minute rock-soul earworm. Most impressive is the way the group transformed the song’s real-life inspiration (Michael facing a mental health crisis) into a cathartic anthem of midnight romance and compassionate persistence. —J.B.
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Jimmie Allen, Charley Pride and Darius Rucker, ‘Why Things Happen’
Image Credit: John Shearer* The highlight of Jimmie Allen’s collaborative Bettie James EP is this questioning ballad, which features vocals from Darius Rucker and the late Charley Pride. There’s nothing outwardly political about the song’s pious searching for higher meaning amidst tragedy, but released during nationwide protests against police brutality in a surging pandemic, “Why Things Happen” perfectly captured a broken nation in mourning. “It’s hard not to question circumstances,” Pride sings, “that leave you with nothin’ to say.” —J.B.
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Sam Hunt, ‘Hard to Forget’
Image Credit: Youtube The latest earworm from Nashville’s pop provocateur began with a sonic concept as daring as it was irreverent: Hunt transformed a Fifties honky-tonk chorus from Webb Pierce’s classic song “There Stands the Glass” into a convincing hip-hop sample that anchored this playful ode to being in the throes of romantic rejection. “You’ve got a cold heart and the cold, hard truth,” he sings amid a swirl of wordplay in the Hank Williams-referencing chorus, “I got a bottle of whiskey, but I got no proof.” —J.B.
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Ruston Kelly, ‘Brave’
“Brave,” a sparse confessional, formed the backbone of Ruston Kelly’s potent second album, Shape & Destroy. In the midst of reflecting on a personal sea change and adapting to the difficult realities of fresh sobriety, the song finds Kelly taking stock of his hard-won progress and self-betterment. It even caught the ear of Barack Obama, who recently named it one of his favorite songs of the year. —J.B.
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Waylon Payne, ‘Sins of the Father’
Image Credit: Pooneh Ghana* Waylon Payne kicked off his excellent album Blue Eyes, the Harlot, the Queer, the Pusher & Me with this rollicking autobiographical tune about his complicated relationship with his dad, guitarist Jody Payne. Rather than address Waylon’s childhood trauma, the two bond over booze and drugs and things don’t end so pretty from there — it takes him years to recover from these destructive patterns. —J.F.
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Margo Price, ‘I’d Die for You’ (Synthphonic)
On Price’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, “I’d Die for You” is a rhythmic jam with muted guitar strums and thumping bass. It’s great, but this piano-and-vocal version is the stunner, showing off the nuance in Price’s voice and the smarts in her lyricism. When she lets loose on the chorus, with strings swelling behind her, the emotion is undeniable. —J.H.
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The Chicks, ‘Gaslighter’
Image Credit: Youtube The Chicks blasted back this year with the best jerk-torching anthem they’ve given us since the glory days of “Goodbye Earl,” back in the late Nineties. The target this time around was at once scathingly personal and vividly universal, as Natalie Maines turned the wreckage of her D-I-V-O-R-C-E into the launchpad for a glorious evisceration of gaslighting fools everywhere — including the one who just got booted out of the White House. —J.D.
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Swamp Dogg, ‘Please Let Me Go Round Again’
Image Credit: David McMurry* This moving meditation on perseverance and aging from roots-soul iconoclast Swamp Dogg and John Prine is a poignant coda to Swamp Dogg’s first-ever country LP (it’s also the last track featuring Prine’s vocal ever to be released in the singer’s lifetime). The best part arrives halfway through, when the two old pals start riffing with each other on a lengthy outro. “You think that’s all you need, just one more?” Swamp asks Prine. “I think so,” Prine replies with a smile. —J.B.
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Tré Burt, ‘Under the Devil’s Knee’
Assisted by Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Sunny War, folk singer-songwriter Tré Burt chronicles three instances of police violence toward black Americans in “Under the Devil’s Knee,” retelling the horrific deaths of George Floyd, Eric Garner, and Breonna Taylor in blunt, realistic fashion. “Your bleeding heart’s complicit if you ain’t in the street,” he sings, indicting people of privilege for their silence and the massive inequality of life in the U.S. —J.F.
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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, ‘Dreamsicle’
Image Credit: Alysse Gafkjen* This deftly told coming-of-age family drama, revealed through childhood remembrances both nostalgic and upsetting, was yet another Isbell masterclass in telling stories through what’s left unsaid. “Broken glass and broken vows/I’ll be 18 four years from now,” he offers in the song’s climactic final verse, “With different friends in a different town/I’ll finally be free.” —J.B.
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Caylee Hammack, ‘Small Town Hypocrite’
The centerpiece from this Nashville singer-songwriter’s debut was the freshest dose of one-horse-town malaise since Kacey Musgraves’ “Merry Go Round.” Cammack tells the crushing story of a woman living with the “phantom pains for the wings” she lost after prematurely settling down. “Ain’t that some shit.” —J.B.
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Joshua Ray Walker, ‘Voices’
Death by the bottle took on new meaning in this devastating ballad from the Texas songwriter: “I’ll put this truck in neutral, let it roll into the lake/first I’ll finish off this bottle, so it looks like a mistake.” That Walker sings of his suicidal ideation with such pained believability only makes it more haunting. —J.H.
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Morgan Wallen, ‘7 Summers’
Image Credit: Youtube Prior to a disappointing lapse in judgment that got him booted from a primo Saturday Night Live booking (they eventually had him on a few weeks later), Morgan Wallen was on a fast track to country stardom. Songs like “7 Summers” were precisely why — its shimmering guitars and unusual melodic turns had more to do with Fleetwood Mac than Garth Brooks, and Wallen’s rough-edged vocals gave his reminiscence of an old flame some of the bite that’s usually missing from mawkishly nostalgic country tunes. “Does it ever make you sad to know, that was 7 summers ago?” he asks, knowing there’s not an answer that would make him feel any better. —J.F.
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Hailey Whitters, ‘Janice at the Hotel Bar’
Image Credit: Youtube The Nashville singer-songwriter’s tale of a chance encounter with an older woman is a classic in the tradition of “advice songs” (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” Jason Isbell’s “Outfit”) that paint a rich picture of a knowing elder through the worldly life lessons they impart on a song’s protagonist. Whitters’ version, which bears the unmistakable folksy stamp of co-writer Lori McKenna, is full of homespun details (“eats sardines by the can”) that add up to a gut-punch chorus full of wise words to live by. —J.B.
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John Prine, ‘I Remember Everything’
Image Credit: Danny Clinch* The loss of Prine to Covid-19 was heartbreaking. At 73, he was one of American music’s most treasured songwriters, still making wonderful records like his most recent one, 2018’s Tree of Forgiveness. Prine had already begun working on a new album, and this is the first song he recorded for it, an almost impossibly poignant acoustic reflection on a life happily lived, from tiny details (a blade of grass, an old guitar) to transcendent moments (“the way you turned and smiled on me/On the night that we first met”), fully aware that experience and loss go hand-in-hand and that “sometimes a little tenderness was the best that I could do.” It’s one last bit of wisdom, before he headed out the door. —J.D.
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Tyler Childers, ‘Long Violent History’
Image Credit: David McClister* Capping off an album of instrumental string-band tunes, the swaying waltz “Long Violent History” was one of talented songwriter Tyler Childers’ most astonishing feats to date. The Kentucky native spoke directly to his Appalachian brethren here, pleading for empathy for black Americans fighting for their right to exist. “How many boys could they haul off this mountain/Shoot full of holes, cuffed and laying in the streets/‘Til we come into town in a stark raving anger/Looking for answers and armed to the teeth?” he asks, knowing that if his people were subjected to similar treatment, they’d be every bit as outraged. Where many white Southerners stayed silent, Childers had the courage and wits to confront them all. —J.F.
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Mickey Guyton, ‘Black Like Me’
Image Credit: Chesea Thompson* “Broke my heart on the playground/When they said I was different,” Mickey Guyton sings in “Black Like Me,” a story of survival and never-ending discrimination that feels quintessentially, well, American. One of country music’s most gifted vocalists, Guyton gives a knockout performance that transforms this first-hand experience with racism into steely determination, echoing James Brown as she sings, “I’m proud to be black like me.” —J.F.