While Jean Shepard’s only number one hit in her entire career was “A Dear John Letter,” she did rack up a string of Top 10 hits, including her highly sensual track “Then He Touched Me.” She released it in 1969 as the first single for her album A Woman’s Hand, which peaked at number 8 on the Hot Country Singles chart.
Meaning Behind the Song
When Jean Shepard entered country music, it wasn’t easy for women like her to survive in the genre – let alone thrive.
Record label executives didn’t think people liked to hear music from female country artists, and if they did, they were boxed into either “girl singers” or tandems with their husbands. In one conversation with Hank Williams at the backstage of his show in Bakersfield, California, she told him that she would be a country singer. To which the legendary singer replied, “Oh yeah? Well, there ain’t much room in this business for a woman country singer.”
But she didn’t let that faze her, and she even went on to record songs about love from a woman’s perspective.
One of those was her 1970 hit track “Then He Touched Me.”
For You
The song was about a woman who had been hurt too much, she had given up on love and lost all her faith in men. And then, she met a man who was so good to her. He was there when she needed someone and made her world a better place to live.
As the track progressed, the song switched into a sensual tone. The woman noticed how the man stared at her, his eyes telling her he knew she had been starved of love and tenderness. And then, he touched her, kissed her lips, and held her off the ground – and her world started to be alive again. His love gave her hope and brought back her trust in men again.
In the end, Shepard sang, “Now my world’s so bright for there’s love all around.” Indeed, there is nothing greater in this world than the power of love.
Go and catch Jean Shepard’s hit song “Then He Touched Me” below.
