Album: This Time (1993)

Charted: 101

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Songfacts®:

• This tale of a girl trying in vain to win back her ex was written by Greek-born songwriter, Kostas (Patti Loveless' "I Can Love You Better") and country artist James House (Martina McBride's "A Broken Wing").
• House told American Songwriter the story of the song.
  
  "We had already been working on another song idea for a couple of hours but it had gotten stale so we decided to take a break," he said. "We started talking and Kostas asked me if I was going to get back together with my estranged girlfriend and I said, 'I ain't that lonely yet,' and we looked at each other and said, 'let's write that'."
  
  "I grabbed my guitar and started singing the verse melody and Kostas was furiously writing lyrics," House continued. "After 10 or 15 minutes he sang the first verse to the melody I was playing. The chorus fell out of him as we were jamming it out. I knew it was a special song when Kostas looked up with a smile and sang the lyric about the spider in my bed. You know you're onto something when the lyrics are coming as fast as you can write them, I think there were four or five more verses that we didn't use."
• The song was recorded by Dwight Yoakam and released as the lead-off single to his This Time album.
  
  "Kostas was writing with Dwight a couple of weeks later and played him the cassette work demo we did," House recalled. "If I remember right it was recorded fairly soon and released within a couple of months."
• The song earned Yoakam his first Grammy award, which he won for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

Comments: 1

• Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn this day in 1993 {May 16th} Dwight Yoakam's "Ain't That Lonely Yet" peaked at #2* {for 3 weeks} on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart, for it's first two weeks at #2, the #1 record for both those weeks was "I Love The Way You Love Me" by John Michael Montgomery, and for it's third week at #2, "Should've Been A Cowboy" by Toby Keith was in the top spot...
  And on June 12th, 1993 "Ain't That Lonely Yet" reached #1 {for 1 week} on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart, the record it replace at #1 was "I Love The Way You Love Me" by John Michael Montgomery...
  Between 1986 and 2005 the Pikeville, Kentucky native had forty one records on the Hot Country Singles chart, fourteen made the Top 10 with two reaching #1, "Streets of Bakersville" {with Buck Owens} for one week in October of 1988 and "I Sang Dixie" for one week in February of 1989...
  Dwight David Yoakam will celebrate his 64th birthday in five months on October 23rd, 2020...
  * "Ain't That Lonely Yet" was Dwight Yoakum's first of three of his records to peak at #2 on the Hot Country Singles chart, his other two #2 records were "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" in September of 1993 and "Fast As You" in December of 1993...
  And from the 'For What It's Worth' department, the remainder of the Hot Country Singles' Top 10 on May 16th, 1993:
  At #3. "Tender Moment" by Lee Roy Parnell
  #4. "Hearts Are Gonna Roll" by Hal Ketchum
  #5. "Tell Me Why" by Wynonna
  #6. "Made For Lovin' You" by Doug Stone
  #7. "Alright Already" by Larry Stewart
  #8. "Should've Been A Cowboy" by Toby Keith
  #9. "Hometown Honeymoon" by Alabama
  #10. "Alibis" by Tracy Lawrence

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