Cher Missed Recording This One-Hit Wonder, Which Later Became a Big Hit for Reba McEntire

In 1982, Reba McEntire released “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”. The song, on her For My Broken Heart album, was written by Bobby Russell. Before McEntire recorded the story song, it was first recorded by Vicki Lawrence. Lawrence was married to Russell at the time.

“The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” is a sordid tale of infidelity and murder. The chorus says, “That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia / That’s the night that they hung an innocent man / Well, don’t trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer / ‘Cause the judge in the town’s got bloodstains on his hands.”

It’s not until the end of the song that it is revealed that the person singing the song is the offender, although someone else was sentenced to death for the crime.

When Russell wrote “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”, Lawrence was an actress. Instead of Lawrence releasing the song, it was pitched to Cher, but not to her directly. Instead, it was given to Sonny Bono, who was Cher’s then-husband. Bono passed on “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”, thinking it would not appeal to Cher’s Southern fans.

Undeterred, Lawrence released “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” on her own. It remains her only hit single.

How Reba McEntire Recorded “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”

McEntire has never shied away from a good story song. But especially in the late 80s and early 90s, McEntire became known for telling stories through her music, with songs like “Whoever’s In New England”, “Fancy”, and more. In fact, McEntire was looking for another song like “Fancy” when she and her producer, Tony Brown, stumbled upon “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”. As they were looking for material, the first tape McEntire grabbed was this song. 

“I handed it to [Brown], and said ‘What about this one?’” McEntire later recalls. “It felt like a sign.”

Not surprisingly, McEntire also shot a very detailed video of this song, with McEntire playing the lead role.

  “The biggest thing I learned from doing movies and videos is to be patient. It takes time,” McEntire says. “It took two whole days to shoot the video. One whole day was just taking the photographs you see.”

“The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” didn’t reach No. 1 like a lot of McEntire’s songs back then. Still, it remains a fan favorite to this day.

“My version of the song only went to number 12 on the charts,” McEntire says. “But it’s become one of my fans’ most favorite songs of my career.”

Tanya Tucker also recorded a slightly different version of this song for a 1981 movie of the same name.

Photo by Ed Lallo/Getty Images

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