Throwback Thursday: Chely Wright, ‘It Was’

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly series showcasing an album, single, music video or performance of a bygone era and its personal and/or cultural significance.

Chely Wright is unbelievable. I saw her perform the City Vineyard in New York City last winter, and she was downright magical. It was an acoustic setting, which gave her the room to soar and really bite down on her lyrics. Her rendition of “It Was,” one of her modern classics, was savagely icy but completely moving. This might have been the cabernet talking, but Wright is one of the finest, most criminally-underrated talents of our time. “It was cool as a breeze / It was warm to the touch / It was never enough / It was always too much / It did all the things love does,” she swoons on this sultry, bath time ballad.

Wright’s magnetism lies in her ability to let the songs breath and simmer. She never overcooks or under-bakes, rather she smokes on the end of the lines in just the right amounts. Written by Mark Wright (Lee Ann Womack, Brooks & Dunn) and Gary Burr (Patty Loveless, Reba), the second release from her 1999 studio album Single White Female, the song is a nostalgic-laced, bittersweet ode about a love that was snuffed out far too early ⎯⎯ as you’ll notice by the prevalent use of past-tense. She doesn’t look back with any sort of malice, rather she revels in its flames, which lick at her wounds and stir up all kinds of complexity, even when she cries “so many tears.”

The performance, which would reach No. 11 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, remains as raw and timeless today as it did nearly 20 years ago. You know what to do.

Related note: her 2016 studio record I am the Rain is excellent and in need of more ears.

Listen below:

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