I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… that George Strait is smoother than silk.
He performed his 50th #1 single, “She’ll Leave You With A Smile,” at the Astrodome back in 2002, and it’s about as heart-melting as a performance can be.
The song at this particular performance was actually recorded for The King’s live album, For the Last Time: Live From the Astrodome, in Houston.
Written by Odie Blackmon and Jay Knowles, it was originally released on his 2002 The Road Less Traveled record, and peaked at the top of the U.S. Billboard Country Songs chart.
And Blackmon says that he and Knowles wrote it when they had both just lost their respective publishing deals and decided they were going to write whatever they wanted, instead of chasing what was popular at the time:
“I remember us specifically sitting down and going, ‘OK… we’re just going to write what we want to write and not worry about anybody else.’ That’s when things turned around for the both of us.
We wrote ‘She’ll Leave You With a Smile’ during that era. I specifically remember the bass line and the verses as the same as like in ‘Dear Prudence’ by The Beatles, even though it’s a country song. I was listening to ‘The White Album’ a lot.
It also kind of reminds me of Conway Twitty, but the bass line was inspired directly by The Beatles.”
And funny enough, this song was the one that broke Conway’s record of 49 #1 songs on the country charts, so it’s pretty fitting they had a little inspiration from him here.
It’s always been one of my favorite George Strait songs, and I will never get enough of watching him sing it live.
If you’re struggling to push through to the end of the week, this video will easily make your day 10 times better:
And you might as well watch this one while you’re here, too…
