Don T Break My Heart My Achy Breaky Heart
| Achy Breaky Centre | |
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| Date Aired | September 11th, 2012 |
| Running Time | 13:31 |
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Todd plays "Achy Breaky Center" on the piano
Baton RAY CYRUS - ACHY BREAKY Center
A i-hitting wonder retrospective
Todd: Welcome back to I Hit Wonderland, where nosotros talk nearly the full careers of artists who are known for only one song. And today, we're gonna take another trip to Nashville.
- Montage of Nashville and several things country, with Brooks & Dunn - "Kicking Scootin' Boogie" playing behind it
Todd (VO): The year is 1992, and country music is undergoing an unprecedented commercial boom.
- Video for Alan Jackson - ...
- Alan: ...gone state
Todd (VO): This i genre accounts for nearly a 5th of all music sales, and line-dancing becomes a national craze. In fact, land music becomes so big that during that yr, ii country artists earn prime-time specials on network tv set.
- Prune of Garth Brooks performing "Friends in Low Places", from This is Garth Brooks
- Garth: I got friends
Todd (VO): The first 1 featured Garth Brooks, the human who led the Nineties Nashville boom and would go on to become 1 of the best-selling artists of all [cursory cut to video for Garth's "The Thunder Rolls"] time.
Todd: The other?
- Video for "Achy Breaky Heart"
Todd (VO): Yes, the darling of Music Metropolis in 1992 wasn't Alan Jackson, George Strait, or Reba McEntire. It was a mulleted bohunk of man who called himself Billy Ray Cyrus, and who rocketed to the height of the charts with his first single, "Achy Breaky Eye".
- Billy Ray Cyrus: Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
Todd (VO): Now most people nowadays seem to know that Baton Ray Cyrus had a striking song back in the early on 90s, [clip from opening credits of Hannah Montana] and nearly five years agone, he reemerged on the coattails of his Disney princess daughter. But your average person...
Todd: ...couldn't tell you a damn matter near the guy that doesn't involve the words "achy", "breaky", or "Miley"...or "mullet".
Todd (VO): Which is weird considering Billy Ray Cyrus was non just a guy with one striking, he was a goddamn superstar in '92. These days, you would never imagine that the "Achy Breaky Centre" guy topped the anthology charts [anthology cover of Some Gave All] for seventeen weeks. Aye, information technology'south still 1 of the best-selling debut albums of all fourth dimension.
Todd: How on Earth did nosotros allow this happen? Well, let'south find out.
- Billy Ray: He might blow up and kill this man
- Wooo...
The big hit
Todd: The Billy Ray Cyrus story basically begins with "Achy Breaky Heart", so we might as well just skip ahead to that.
- Performance at a Walmart
- The Marcy Brothers: Don't tell my heart
- My achy breakin' heart
- I just don't think you lot'd sympathise
Todd (VO): Actually, no, we're backtracking about a twelvemonth here. This is the original version called "Don't Tell My Heart" by an obscure, short-lived country band called the Marcy Brothers. You'll discover the lyrics go, "achy, breakin eye," which makes sense because "breaky" is not a word.
Todd: This was non released as a single. It was offered to [album cover of Bobbie Sue by...] the Oak Ridge Boys, who passed on it because their pb singer thought "achy breaky" was a stupid phrase to try and sing. Keep in mind that the Oak Ridge Boys are most famous for this.
- The Oak Ridge Boys performing "Elvira" on Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters
- Oak Ridge Boys: Giddy up
- Richard Sterban: Ba oom poppa oom poppa mow mow
- Oak Ridge Boys: Empty-headed upwards
- Richard: Ba oom poppa oom poppa mow mow
Todd: Eventually, this song got scooped up by one [Country Music cover featuring...] William Ray Cyrus, a struggling artist who had tried for years to get a record deal in LA earlier eventually snagging a bargain in Nashville at the age of 30. And country music...
- Prune of "Boot Scootin' Boogie"
Todd (VO): ...was only blowing up right around this time, simply they didn't have anyone like Baton Ray because nigh land stars just weren't that good-looking. Brooks & Dunn may have been very successful in their day, but they didn't exactly get the girlies screamin'. [Footage of Baton Ray with fans swarming] Only Baton Ray sure did. It'due south tempting to call him the redneck Rico Suave, and I accept to believe that was part of why he took off the fashion he did.
Todd: Just what nigh that big hit single?
- Billy Ray: You tin tell the world you never was my girl
Todd (VO): In retrospect, it'due south hard to figure out why this was such a big bargain. Not to put also fine a point on it, merely "Achy Breaky Heart" is kind of a doofy song.
Todd: Full disclosure—when I was eight, I thought "Achy Breaky Heart" was the shit.
- Billy Ray: Or yous can tell your friends just what a fool I've been
Todd (VO): So what is this song about? Well, it's about a human being who will excuse any behavior from his girl when she breaks up with him, every bit long every bit she doesn't tell his fragile...
Todd: ..."achy breaky" heart.
Todd (VO): Now, this is a sentiment that could've been played straight. In fact, right off the elevation of my head, I can think of one country vocal that did simply that.
- Tracy Lawrence performing "Tin can't Pause It to My Center" on Hot Country Nights
- Tracy: Yes I've got it through my head; I only can't suspension it to my heart
Todd: Just of course, "Achy Breaky Heart" isn't a sad vocal,...
Todd (VO): ...it's a big, happy sing-along with a huge chorus. Most people are familiar with the concept of a broken center, but...
Todd: "Achy Breaky Middle" 1-ups it. His middle will explode.
Billy Ray: And if you tell my centre, my achy breaky heart
- He might blow up and kill this man
Todd: I think he may have been dating The Helpmate from Kill Bill. [Clip from Kill Bill: Book 2, where The Helpmate (Uma Thurman), SPOILER Warning, uses the 5-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart-Technique on Bill (David Carradine)] And if you think the words "achy breaky" are too goofy to stomach, you lot probably won't exercise well at all with the verses, which are all virtually the various other people and parts of his body you can tell to do various things.
- Baton Ray: Or tell your Aunt Louise, tell anything y'all please
- Myself already knows I'yard not okay
Todd: It is incredibly cornball, yes, and many of them don't brand sense.
- Baton Ray: You can tell my arms become back to the farm
- You can tell my feet to hit the flooring
Todd: Hey, Billy Ray Cyrus's arms, go dorsum to the subcontract.
- Baton Ray: Or yous can tell my lips to tell my fingertips
- They won't be reaching out for y'all no more
Todd: Howdy, fingertips. I, the lips, take been instructed to inform you that you shall not be reaching out for her no more. [beat] Got that?
Todd (VO): Yeah, information technology's dumb. But have information technology from somebody who knows, at that place were plenty of country songs, and so and now, that are just as corny, if not cornier. But they didn't take the bad luck of being a national trip the light fantastic toe craze that seeped into the popular consciousness and aged pretty badly. More than the silly lyrics, though, I think information technology was Billy Ray'southward singing style that sunk this song's reputation.
Todd: I can only draw his arrayal as somewhere betwixt [pictures of...] fake Springsteen and fake Elvis.
- Billy Ray: You lot can tell your ma I moved to Arkansas
- You tin can tell your domestic dog to seize with teeth my leg
Todd (VO): [a la Elvis] Uh-huh, thank you very much.
Todd: And believe me, he definitely played up the whole "Fabio in bluish jeans" thing as much as possible. [Unmarried cover of "Could've Been Me"] I seem to call up him favoring a lot of sleeveless shirts [press motion picture] and vests with nothing underneath. [TMZ footage of Miley] For anyone who gets all shocked every fourth dimension Miley gets photographed in a skimpy outfit, well, I estimate you just don't remember what Billy Ray-mania was like. [promo poster of Billy Ray Cyrus Live on Tour] I can't find any footage of his prime-time special, merely trust me, the whole night was practically a damn Chippendale's show.
- Billy Ray: Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky middle
Todd (VO): Once again, I cannot emphasize how successful Billy Ray Cyrus was last year. His CD Some Gave All went nine times platinum.
Todd: So why don't you know any of his other songs? Well...
The failed follow-upward
Todd: "Failed" would be an incorrect way to put it.
- Various media clips of Baton Ray
Todd (VO): Billy Ray Cyrus never charted another popular hit, just he wasn't a popular creative person, and so information technology didn't really matter. The affair about state music is that, inside the genre, i-striking wonders are close to non-existent. If you have one country hit, you can generally count on at least a couple others, and Billy Ray Cyrus was no exception to this.
Todd: That said, Baton Ray'southward mail service-"Achy Breaky" career was not exactly stellar.
- Video for "Could've Been Me"
- Billy Ray: I hear you just got married
Todd (VO): Cyrus was never a critical darling, either inside or outside the state music world. Part of it was his persona, but also part of it was that he fabricated very polished, very not-land music. In fact, "Achy Breaky Heart" is probably the countriest vocal he ever recorded. Matter of fact, that's exactly why he had such trouble getting a record deal in Nashville for a while. His second single, "Could've Been Me" made it all the way to #two on the country charts, but it's pretty like shooting fish in a barrel to imagine it being performed by Bryan Adams or Richard Marx or somebody like that.
- Billy Ray: It could've been me standing in that location with yous
Todd (VO): He spat out two other striking singles from that album, and fifty-fifty though it wasn't an official unmarried, he also got [video for...] some play for the album'due south title track, "Some Gave All."
- Billy Ray: All gave some, some gave all
- Some stood through for the ruby-red, white & blue
- And some had to autumn
Todd (VO): It's a story of a veteran telling yous to thank our troops for their sacrifice for your freedom considering y'all would be talking in German without them, y'all lazy, goddamn disrespectful punks. Whether yous tin can listen to this song probably depends on your tolerance for right-wingish songs almost freedom and the soldiers and everything, but for me, listening to this songs for the first time in two decades, I just...
Todd: ...cannot get past Billy Ray's absolutely wretched, overwrought singing.
- Baton Ray: And if you lot e'er recollect of me recall of all your liberties
- And retrieve
Todd imitates Billy Ray'southward style
Todd (VO): What the hell is he doing? I vastly adopt "Achy Breaky Eye" to this.
- Billy Ray: Some gave all
Todd: So came the second album.
- Video for "In the Center of a Woman"
- Billy Ray: Say yous love her strong and true, allow her know all she ways to you
Todd (VO): Billy Ray hitting a fleck of a sophomore slump with his follow-up, which only hit i time platinum, and this was dorsum in the days when a platinum album could exist considered a disappointment.
Todd: Oh, what a fat and spoiled nation was the tape industry in those long ago days.
- Billy Ray: In the heart of a woman
- Video for "Words by Middle"
Todd (VO): The wheels were coming off the bandwagon at this point, but he was still having hits. So really, who could complain?
- Billy Ray: Deep in the pocket, still folded up tight
- Was the letter...
Todd (VO): My family had this anthology also, and though I haven't heard these songs in years, I know them like the back of my hand.
- Billy Ray: I know the words by center, I know every line
- From "this own't easy" to "you'll go forth simply fine"
Todd: It's amazing how much he sounds like Trey Parker's stone voice.
- Clip from Team America: World Police, playing the song...
- Stone singer (Trey Parker): America, fuck aye!
- Comin' once again to salve the motherfuckin' mean solar day, yeah!
- Video for Dolly Parton - "Romeo"
- Billy Ray: So step it high, pace information technology low
Todd (VO): Oh, also I would exist remiss if I did not share with you his invitee appearance on Dolly Parton'south single, "Romeo," in which Dolly and a gaggle of other female country singers drool over how hot he is.
- Dolly: I may non be in love
- Merely let me tell you I'm in heat
- Romeo
Todd (VO): The homo was without shame.
- Baton Ray: Won't yous be my Juliet
Todd: And that's pretty much where the story of Billy Ray Cyrus—hitmaker comes to an sharp end.
- Video for "Storm in the Heartland"
- Billy Ray: We made it through the inundation of '93
Todd (VO): Peradventure he was a victim of his own persona, but he tried to transition to more than mature music for his next couple albums, and the critics actually started affectionate him for one time. Just the public did not.
Todd: I guess no one actually wanted the "Achy Breaky" guy to starting time singing about the government's shameful treatment of Native Americans.
- Video for "Trail of Tears"
- Billy Ray: And let them soar like eagles beyond the trail of tears
Todd (VO): He simply managed to notch ane more than Top x country hit before the 90s ended, [clip of "Busy Homo"] some "Cats in the Cradle" thing about beingness with your family.
- Baton Ray: Can't yous encounter I'1000 a busy man
Todd: Past the new millennium, Billy Ray Cyrus was a has-been and a joke
Did he e'er do anything else?
Todd: Well, plain you already know that Billy Ray somewhen did make a comeback of sorts, mostly through acting. [Clip from...] Commencement in a hilarious cameo in the David Lynch flick, Mulholland Bulldoze.
- Factor (Billy Ray Cyrus): Just forget you ever saw it. It'due south better that fashion.
Clips from...
Todd (VO): And and then some medical drama called Doc, where his daughter also guest-starred for a few episodes, [clips from...you know...] which got her her own Disney Channel sitcom, and the rest is history. I accept limited feel with the Hannah Montana Television set show, but accept my word that, based on the prove I take, Billy Ray Cyrus is one of the most wretched actors who ever lived.
- Robby Ray (VO): [in machine with Hannah] I'm gonna throw up!
Todd (VO): Then once more, it's hard to imagine Olivier managing to elevate this material. [Clip of "Ready, Set, Don't Go"] He besides never stopped making albums. A duet with his daughter brought him another Top ten unmarried, his kickoff in a decade. For the record, Billy Ray insists that he'southward not ane of those showbiz dads who steals their kid's coin, only having a famous daughter has been pretty damn good for his career and he's however touring now. [Clip of end of Hannah Montana episode] I guarantee that most people wouldn't know that there was a vocal called "I Want My Mullet Back" without Hannah Montana.
- Robby Ray and Hannah: I want my mullet dorsum
Todd (VO): Can yous believe this guy'southward in his 50s now? Looks good for his age, doesn't he?
Did he deserve improve?
Todd: Um...yes and no.
Todd (VO): Now that I've actually got a adventure to sample the total Billy Ray Cyrus oeuvre, I'd say that his after textile wasn't as catchy or good every bit the material he had in his early on years, which is probably why his career died out. But at the same time, he became a much better performer once he stopped doing the eee-yeah... shit. But yous know, that'due south the persona he chose for himself, he'due south the one that wore the damn ponytail and the tank tops. His short shelf-life was just something he brought on himself. I don't think it's a coincidence that Billy Ray Cyrus's career died out right around the aforementioned time that [clip of "Indian Outlaw" past...] Tim McGraw showed up and started doing basically the exact same shtick, simply way amend.
In whatsoever case, time hasn't smiled on Billy Ray'south heyday. Modern country music is still basically the firm that Garth built, and about of the biggest names of the early on 90s are big names even so. Only Baton Ray'south time in the spotlight has been pretty much wiped from memory. I don't think we're ever gonna get a major Baton Ray Cyrus revival. Merely, if aught else, nosotros largely had "Achy Breaky Heart" to thank for the line-dancing craze that goes on to this day.
Todd: Billy Ray Cyrus, your legacy lives on.
- Billy Ray: Woo!
Closing tag song: Kikki Danielsson - "En Allra Sista Chans"
THE Stop
"Achy Breaky Heart" is endemic by Mercury Records
This video is owned by me
Don T Break My Heart My Achy Breaky Heart
Posted by: bealeforris.blogspot.com