The Meaning Behind “Can’t Even Get the Blues” by Reba McEntire and Why It Looms Large in Her Career

Reba McEntire will once again bring her expertise and experience to her coaching duties on a new season of The Voice, which begins on Monday (February 26). Young singers can certainly appreciate how McEntire has steered her career toward the songs that she wants to sing. That goes all the way back to her first-ever No. 1 country single, “Can’t Even Get the Blues,” which hit the top back in 1982.

Considering all the chart-toppers that followed in its wake, “Can’t Even Get the Blues” looms pretty large in her career. Let’s take a look back at when she recorded the song and what it was all about.

Enough with the Slow Stuff

Reba McEntire’s country music career was a bit of a slow build. Her first four albums, which were recorded on the Mercury Records label, focused on soft country ballads. While these songs certainly allowed McEntire to show off her range and sensitivity, they also sold short the full scope of her abilities.

Along the way, she began to feel frustrated at being put in this specific box. As a young artist, however, she didn’t really have the pull to make big changes. She was beholden to her record label and producers to pull in material for her, and since they’d only heard her sing the slow ones, it became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

By the time 1982 rolled around, when she was recording her fifth studio album, McEntire put her foot down as much as possible with a song called “Can’t Even Get the Blues.” It was a song earmarked for another artist named Jacky Ward. When McEntire heard the song, which was written by Tom Damphier and Rick Carnes, McEntire convinced producer Jerry Kennedy to let her record it.

It was dropped into the somewhat inglorious spot as the last song on the 1982 album Unlimited. And it was only the second single released from the album. But it hit the sweet spot with audiences, and McEntire was rewarded with her first-ever country hit.

The song features some bluesy verses, which then segue into a chorus that features a bassline somewhat reminiscent of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme. Most important of all, “Can’t Even Get the Blues” shows a feisty side of McEntire, one that her fans have been enjoying practically ever since. (She would leave Mercury for RCA Records, with the main reason being her desire to choose her own material.)

The Meaning of “Can’t Even Get the Blues”

“Can’t Even Get the Blues” tells the story of a woman who has been wronged so many times by a certain guy that the pain that she once felt has been numbed. As she walks through her empty house or sits on the back porch expecting rain that never comes, she seems to be surprised by the lack of feeling: This is where it ought to hurt.

But it doesn’t really matter / To me, it’s all the same, she explains about her suddenly even-handed nature. She almost seems disappointed by this turn of events: So what am I supposed to do? she wonders. Damphier and Carnes add clever lines that upend what we think we’re going to get from a heartbreak song. When she tosses and turns, she falls asleep. I’m going under but it’s not too deep, she confesses.

When you combine lines like that with her resilient delivery, this character seems to be well on the way to getting over this guy’s endless coming and going. “Can’t Even Get the Blues” showed Reba McEntire effortlessly picking up the pace for the first time in her career, and, as it turned out, picking up a lot of fans along the way.

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Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA