Read My Mind, Pam

I've never listened to any music by Reba McEntire. I honestly can't even name her biggest hit. Something I do know about Reba, aside from way too many details about one single episode of her TV show, is that she is beloved by many Americans. She embodies that spirit of the hardworking, sassy mom who doesn't take any shit but still goes to church, doesn't curse, and above all puts family first (did I just summarize the Reba TV show song, "I'm a Survivor"?). Well, that's definitely Reba. A woman you can count on—really has her act together. Now let's see how Read My Mind fits into that persona.

Read My Mind is very sentimental ballad heavy. I guess I expected all of the songs on Read My Mind (or any Reba album for that matter) to sound like "I Won't Stand in Line," or "Why Haven't I Heard from You," which were both a hoot. I certainly wasn't expecting the album to begin with the sexy saxophone on "Everything That You Want." Both the upbeat songs and the slower ones were all pretty attention-grabbing, which I guess is inherent with ballads.

Let’s talk about "She Thinks His Name Was John." Oof. This one didn't age too well. At first I thought, is this a story about a rape? Or is this girl's life ruined because she feels so ashamed about having a one-night stand? I thought, wow, were the values of the Middle and Southern U.S. so strict and strong in the '90s that having a one-night stand on your conscience could be life-ruining? Well, then I looked up the supposed meaning of "She Thinks His Name Was John." And then it all made sense. This is apparently a song about a woman who contracts AIDS from a one-night stand. I'll say it again... oof. Did anyone else grow up hearing the urban legend of people with AIDS placing pins with AIDS blood on the ear pieces of pay phones? Problematic. Of course AIDS is a real fear for people, but a song like this... I don't know. It sits weird. It definitely does a really good job of promoting that fear of AIDS that was so strong in the '80s and still in the '90s. Even though the characters in the song are straight, I can't help but feel that this song adds to the homophobia and prejudice against gay people that is so rampant in America. 

The line between country music and all other pop music used to be so distinct in my life. I can still name the kids I grew up with who I know listened to country music because it was like a character trait. I know I wrote about this when we covered Shania Twain but the same is even more true for Reba, since Shania was one of the first to really cross that line. The weird thing is that most of the songs on Read My Mind, the ballads in particular, are songs that would have fit right in with the other diva-driven songs of that era (Vanessa Williams, Céline Dion, etc.) played on Star 104.5. But because that divide was so prominent, I was never even exposed to Reba. Perhaps if that line between country and pop had been blended sooner and was more like today, I'd be listening to Read My Mind with memories of sitting in the back of my parents' station wagon cruising through Feasterville and not looking at it like it's a time capsule through a 2022 lens.