Gretchen Wilson Wrote “Redneck Woman” Because Country Music Wasn’t Singing To Girls Like Her: “All I Saw Was Beautiful Women Like Faith Hill Rolling Around On Silk Sheets”

If you don’t love this song, we can’t be friends.

Gretchen Wilson came out swinging in 2004 with her debut single “Redneck Woman,” which was included on her debut album Here for the Party, both of which were released in 2004. She co-wrote the song with half of Big & Rich duo John Rich, and it remains her only number-one single on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. It was minor crossover hit, too and reached #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

It earned her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards in 2005, and of course, remains her signature song to this day. I was a kid when this song came out, but I have vivid memories of hearing it on the radio, both country and Top 40, all the time… I think I had those words memorized before I was even 10 years old, if that gives you any indication of how I grew up.

This song came out in the early 2000’s, during a time when artists like Faith Hill were extremely popular… no slight to Faith, I love her, but let’s be honest, she isn’t necessarily the most relatable women on the planet just by her looks alone. Songs like “Breathe” had come out towards the end of the ’90s, and mainstream country music was starting to lean back into the more polished music that sounded nothing like “Redneck Woman,” which is why Wilson was afraid it wouldn’t work.

During a recent interview, she talked about how she just felt like women like her, who wanted a simple life that included raising kids and dogs out in the country, and who didn’t look like Faith Hill, weren’t represented, and deserved to be celebrated too:

“‘Redneck Woman’ was it. I mean, it was the whole, people tell you, there are a lot of really talented people, but it takes the right voice, also the right song and the right time. Those things have to kind of come together for you to have a really monster hit. And that’s what happened with redneck woman. And it was just the perfect time.

Women like me weren’t really being spoken to or sung about, and you know, when I turned on the music channels, all I saw was beautiful women like Faith Hill rolling around on silk sheets, ‘I can feel you breathe.’ And I’m like, who the hell looks like that at 6 o’clock in the morning, you know? Not me, or anybody that I know. So it was just the time, it was time to write a song for women like me that we’re happy to be like me.

That thought that their whole world was fulfilled living in a mobile home, driving a pick up truck, raising kids and dogs and then going to the football game on the weekend. Not everybody wants the same thing in life, and if that’s what your life is, and that’s what you’re happy with, you should be celebrated too.”

While she obviously didn’t know what a huge hit it would become, she knew it was special to her because she had finally written a song that “truly represented” who she was. Though the fear was that no one else was doing anything like that at the time, so it may not work, that ended up being the reason it did work so well:

“It felt special to me, because it felt like my home. It felt like I finally, truly, had written a song that that really represented me. Honestly, our feeling was nobody’s gonna play this. We were in a in a moment in country music where that pendulum was swinging more towards the slicker sound, and we just thought that we might’ve missed our window, or that the timing wasn’t right.

Girls weren’t doing what I was doing at that moment, so that’s the reason it worked, but we were afraid that it could be the reason that it wouldn’t.”

Not only did it work, but it became a huge hit, and the start of a very successful career that Wilson still enjoys to this day. There’s just something in this song that scratches a certain part of my brain… I become a different person when this song comes on, and I have never heard the full story behind it, which makes it that much better.

Turn it up…

“Redneck Woman”

The post Gretchen Wilson Wrote “Redneck Woman” Because Country Music Wasn’t Singing To Girls Like Her: “All I Saw Was Beautiful Women Like Faith Hill Rolling Around On Silk Sheets” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.