Change Of Heart

Album: Greatest Hits (1988)
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Songfacts®:

  • The original version of this aching country ballad appeared on The Judds' debut EP, Wynonna & Naomi, in 1984. Naomi, who'd just had her heart broken by her longtime boyfriend Larry Strickland, a former background singer for Elvis Presley, wrote the song from his perspective, wishing he would say the remorseful lyrics to her.

    "He broke my heart," she explained in the biography The Judds Story by Bob Millard. "I stayed up three days and three nights, couldn't eat or sleep, and I wrote 'Change Of Heart.' The song just came out beginning to end."
  • The Judds performed this at their live audition for RCA that earned them a recording contract. Around this time, Strickland was the one who had a change of heart and proposed to Naomi, but she rejected him. They took a break for a year and a half before rekindling their romance and eventually getting married in 1989.
  • After years of hearing that the first version should have been a single, The Judds' producer, Brent Maher, decided to have the duo re-record it for their Greatest Hits album. It became their 12th #1 hit on the Country chart and, according to the producer, outshone the original.

    "We'd grown a lot," Maher explained in the Billboard Book Of #1 Country Hits. "Wynonna has grown a lot vocally. We felt we could cut the track a little bit better, a little bit more dynamic, and we raised the key up a half-step."
  • The Judds performed this live at the Country Music Association Awards in 1988.
  • The compilation was The Judds' last album to reach #1 on the Country Albums chart.

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