“Seven Year Ache” (Rosanne Cash)

Today’s classic song of the day was a #1 country hit that crossed over to the mainstream charts. The song is “Seven Year Ache” by Johnny Cash’s little girl Rosanne Cash. The single was released in February of 1981 and hit #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, #6 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Chart, and #22 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Seven Year Ache” was the first of ten #1 country tunes by Rosanne Cash. She wrote this one herself and her then-husband Rodney Crowell produced it. (They broke up a decade later, in 1992.) It was a groundbreaking single of a sort, being one of the first big country hits written by a female artist. Most country tunes for female singers, up to that point, were written by men. It was also a country tune that didn’t really sound like a country tune, using modern pop production techniques to give it a sound not unlike more mainstream songs on the radio at that time.

Rosanne Cash never became the kind of Nashville country star that dominated the charts at the time. In fact, her career as an outsider (even though she was the ultimate insider, as Johnny Cash’s daughter) inspired other more literate female country singers, such as Kathy Mattea, Nanci Griffith, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, and Emmylou Harris.

Ms. Cash released her first album in 1978, but it was her second album, 1980’s Right or Wrong, that put her on the map with three top twenty-five country singles. The album Seven Year Ache followed in 1981, hitting #1 on Billboard’s Country Chart and spawning three #1 country hits, including the title track. She’s continued to perform and release albums over the years, including 2014’s The River & The Thread, which won three Grammy Awards for Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song, and Best American Roots Performance, the later two for the track “A Feather’s Not a Bird.” Ms. Cash was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, honored as Artist-in-Residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and selected as Carnegie Hall’s 2015-2016 Perspective Series Artist. She’s still performing today, aged 68.