It was 2000, and it had been six years since Travis Tritt hit the top of the charts and three since his last appearance in the Top 10. The first few months of the year were a lull, too. In June, he dropped his first single from his album Down the Road I Go, titled “Best of Intentions,” a self-written ballad about love and relationships. This was also his first release under his new label, Columbia Nashville. It debuted at number 62 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, and then months later, the track reached number one. Aside from country radio, it also grabbed a spot on the Hot 100, peaking at number 27.
It was a long wait, but he was back in the game. After “Best of Intentions,” two more Travis Tritt songs from the album went on to chart.
In an interview with Tritt in celebration of his accomplishment at the Havana Lounge in downtown Nashville, he said, “I wasn’t sure a couple of years ago that I would have this opportunity again … to be able to come back and have platinum albums to celebrate and No. 1 singles to celebrate and sold-out performances to celebrate, all those things, it’s truly a gift. … I truly am more appreciative of that now than I’ve ever been in my career.”
Meaning Behind the Song
“Best of Intentions” went on to be Travis Tritt’s fifth and final number-one hit. More importantly, it was his comeback track. It was a soul-stirring anthem that showed a man’s devotion to his woman and his regret of being unable to build the life he had always planned for her.
The song started with the regretful line to his love, “I had big plans for our future / Said I’d give you the whole world somehow.” Then, he sang about how he tried to make good on that promise and thought he could build a castle for the queen of his heart. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, despite having the best intentions from the start.
For You
It continued somberly, expressing how his mistakes had made him a loser in other people’s eyes. But that feeling faded when she wrapped him tightly in her arms. And then he pleaded with her, “Please tell me you will remember / No matter how much I do wrong / That I had the best of intentions all along.”
And he knew that he promised her things, but his plans slipped right out of his hands.
At the end of the song, he asks for her forgiveness and prays for her understanding so that she will not think he is taking her for granted. He knows she deserves better, and he is so lucky to have her, but his devotion to her isn’t something she could find anywhere else.
Watch Travis Tritt‘s creative visualization of his song “Best of Intentions” as an inmate who wished things had gone differently in the video below.
