The Chicks, Fly – 25th Anniversary
25 years ago, in late-August 1999, The Chicks followed up their major label debut smash of an album (Wide Open Spaces) with Fly.
The country trio was already a household name at this point, thanks to the success of Wide Open Spaces… but as always, we wanted more, and we expected big things. And, well, we friggin’ got it.
Across 13 songs and 48 minutes, Fly offered up The Chicks in fun, feelings, chart-toppers, and sing-along standouts. And 25 years later, we’re still here for it.
Recorded and released in 1999, Fly sold more than 8.5 million copies worldwide. It went to #1 on the American and Canadian country album charts and debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart too. The album, unquestionably, was and is a massive hit and success.
Even the reviews were solid with Rolling Stone giving it 3.5/5 stars, the LA Times giving it 3/4 stars, and the Houston Chronicle giving it 4/5 stars.
25 years later, when I look back at the tracklist, I can hear eight out of the 13 songs in my head instantly. That’s a pretty good number.
But there’s one song, track five, that I didn’t always want to hear.
To say that I have a complicated relationship with Goodbye Earl is overdramatic. But I have feelings. And those feelings have layers.
When the Fly album came out, Goodbye Earl was just another banger. An upbeat murder ballad about domestic violence, friendship, and black-eyed peas. A country bop that became a massive hit and was a lot of fun for everyone. The video was famous, the song made the band more famous, it was everywhere.
But then, as time passed, the song took on another life inside of my life.
As a karaoke kid, I heard Goodbye Earl more from singers that weren’t Natalie Maines than I did from the woman herself. I heard good, not-as-good, sober, drunk, solo, big groups, all of it. And it wore on me as someone who was all-in when the album dropped and the song got played originally way back in 1999.
Note: Goodbye Earl isn’t to blame for this. And it isn’t the first song in country that did this or had this happen to it. Before it was Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like A Woman & That Don’t Impress Me Much. After it was Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats. It’s the nature of things. It’s the karaoke way. It’s what happens to massive songs. It’s not the songs’ fault.
For more on Goodbye Earl (and The Chicks), hit play on the 60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s episode when you’re done here.
The other seven songs I can hear in my head when I look at the tracklist are:
7. Some Days You Gotta Dance
6. If I Fall You’re Going Down with Me
5. Ready to Run
4. Sin Wagon
3. Cold Day in July
2. Without You
1. Cowboy Take Me Away
To me, Cowboy Take Me Away is the best song on the album. It’s beautiful, it’s sweet, and it hits me in my heart, 25 years later, which is a wonderful thing for a song to be able to do at both age 17 and 42.
If you haven’t listened to Cowboy Take Me Away in a while, in years, in a decade, maybe in two – now is a great time to give it a spin.
And if you have listened to it more recently, I applaud you on living your best life – and now is a great time to give it a spin again too.
One of my favourite things about Fly, just like Wide Open Spaces, is that I can let myself fall all the way back into these albums without thinking about all the bullshit The Chicks went through just a few years later.
These songs are uncomplicated by Iraq or George W Bush or conservative country radio or Walmart or Toby Keith anything else.
These 13 songs were the celebrated next steps after country music fell in love with Wide Open Spaces.
This was just music, made and released to be loved and sung. And it was. And I still do.
And I invite you to. Relive Fly now. Hit play and listen to the whole album. Pick out your favourites and play them on repeat. Go backwards when you’re done to There’s Your Trouble. Or go forward to Landslide, Not Ready To Make Nice, and Gaslighter. Or do both.
And remember, if you’re out on highway 109, keep an eye out for a roadside stand selling Tennessee ham and strawberry jam.
The Chicks, Fly – tracklist
1. Ready to Run
2. If I Fall You’re Going Down with Me
3. Cowboy Take Me Away
4. Cold Day in July
5. Goodbye Earl
6. Hello Mr. Hearthache
7. Don’t Waste Your Heart
8. Sin Wagon
9. Without You
10. Some Days You Gotta Dance
11. Hole in My Head
12. Heartbreak Town
13. Let Him Fly
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