For My Sunday Song #414, we are going to go a little country with Paul Laine’s band called DarkHorse. The song is called “Goodbye” and is off the album called “Let It Ride” which was released in 2014, almost 25 years after his rock debut album. This is Paul’s first dive in to the Country genre and saw him head to down to Nashville and work with Steve Ohe. I don’t think the song was a single and the album didn’t do much in the charts here in the States, but it was a country album that country fans missed out on for sure.
The song is a love letter to the woman who left him for another man. He’s heartbroken and looking for closure but doesn’t know how to get that closure as she is gone and he hasn’t been album to properly say goodbye. He loved her so much that the fact she left has scarred him deeply. He wants to see her one more time even if it is just to say goodbye, but he can’t do that if he doesn’t know how why she left and if it isn’t truly over.
The song is a ballad and yes there is a country twang to it, but at its heart, the song is still a melodic rock love song. It has that 80’s rock, ballad sound with a few country guitars such as a slide and steel guitar. Paul’s vocals are so tender and heartbreakingly sad that the emotion from those lyrics oozes out. You can feel the pain he is feeling. His vocals never age and he can still hit these high notes that most artist would kill for. As far as ballads go, they don’t get much better than this. You will see it leans less country and more rock if you listen to the heart of the song.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 