Though it was released nearly four decades ago, Anne Murray’s “A Little Good News” is just as timely today.
Written by Tommy Rocco, Charlie Black, and Rory Bourke, the heartfelt country ode finds Murray singing about one’s despair over the inhumanity, cruelty, and distress she often reads about in newspapers and hears on the news. She ponders how delightful it would be if, just for one day, people who write news stories for a newspaper or reporters who tell people news on the radio and TV had “nothin’ bad to say.”
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Charlie Black remembered that particular day they wrote the song. The three songwriters were sitting around with their cup of coffee while watching journalist Bryant Gumbel reporting the 1982 Lebanon War on “The Today Show.” And every news story was worse than the one past it, making them shake their heads of how bad things were. It was at that moment when Black said, “Wow, we sure could use a little good news today.”
And the rest was history. “A Little Good News” turned out to be one of the strongest songs in country music and most memorable among Anne Murray songs.
Anne Murray recorded and released the song in 1983 as the lead single from the album of the same name. It ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, where it stayed for a total of twenty incredible weeks. It also reached No. 11 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart while peaking at No. 74 on Billboard Hot 100.
Most importantly, the song took home the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. It was also hailed as the Country Music Association’s Single of the Year.
Make sure to listen to “A Little Good News” by Anne Murray in the video below.
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