| "If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Alabama | ||||
| from the album Roll On | ||||
| A-side | "I'm Not That Way Anymore" | |||
| Released | July 16, 1984 | |||
| Recorded | November 3, 1983 | |||
| Genre | Country rock, bluegrass | |||
| Length | 3:22 (single edit) 3:44 (Greatest Hits Vol. III) 4:28 (album version) | |||
| Label | RCA Nashville | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Murry Kellum Dan Mitchell | |||
| Producer(s) | Harold Shedd Alabama | |||
| Alabama singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)" is a song written by Murry Kellum and Dan Mitchell, and recorded by American country music band Alabama. It was released in July 1984 as the B-side of the third single from their Roll On album. Though "I'm Not That Way Anymore" was released as the A-side, radio programmers preferred the flipside and the song became Alabama's 14th consecutive number-one single on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.[1]
During the first weeks the song was on the Billboard chart, "I'm Not That Way Anymore" charted concurrently, being listed as a tag-along B-side. Since "I'm Not That Way" was intended as the A-side, the song had an accompanying music video which was filmed at Fort Payne High School.
The chorus references "Faded Love" by Texas musician Bob Wills and "Louisiana Man" by Doug Kershaw repeatedly throughout the song.
The song was used as the basis of "If You're Gonna Run in Texas", a radio campaign advertisement produced as part of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz's reelection campaign in 2018.[2]
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 19.
- ^ Willis, Jay (March 7, 2018). "It Sounds Like Ted Cruz Is Getting a Little Anxious". gq.com. Retrieved March 16, 2019.