Shot Through Your Cheatin’ Heart: “Open Pit Mine” and Country’s Cuckolded Killers
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“The Cold Hard Facts of Life”
Porter Wagoner’s 1966 song, “The Cold Hard Facts of Life,” adds a “don’t surprise your wife” element to the story of the cuckolded hardworking husband. The “surprise” trope lends some narrative logic to the stories, but also subtly reinforces the idea of male domestic control. Remember, only paralysis prevents the protagonist in “Ruby” from preventing his wife from “taking her love to town.”
Wagoner’s song, written by Bill Anderson, became a #2 country hit. Its title phrase becomes a metaphor for the husband’s disillusionment and a euphemism for his violent resolution to it.
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“The Snakes Crawl at Night”
Mel Tillis, who wrote “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” co-wrote this 1966 Charley Pride song with Frank Burch. “Snakes” combines the “Window Up Above” dynamic of the surveilled spouse with the idea that the enraged spouse is possessed by the Devil in taking his vengeance. The Biblical symbolism and the protagonist’s state of mind probably make this the most “Gothic” so far. It is also the only one in which the killer faces execution. Many of these cuckolded killer songs dispense with reassuring the audience that the killer is going to be punished, although the killer in “Open Pit Mine” anticipates a remorseful suicide. Of our songs today, only this song and “Papa Loves Mama” below mention punishment, and only this one involves execution. Although “Snakes” was released as a single, it didn’t make the charts.
“Blood Red and Going Down”
Tanya Tucker’s “Blood Red and Going Down,” is the first of our songs with a female narrator. Tucker sings of a girl whose father brings her on his quest for vengeance against his wife and her lover. The ending is particularly chilling seen from the child’s perspective. “Blood Red and Going Down” was written by Curly Putman and was a #1 country hit in 1973, and reached #74 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Radio Lover”
“Radio Lover” brings back to our list both George Jones and Curly Putman, who co-wrote the song with Bucky Jones and Ron Hellard. Jones recorded “Radio Lover” in 1983, three years after classic collaboration with Putman on “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” but released it in 1989. The country charts were not as friendly to Jones in the late 80s, and this song reached only #62 there.
“Radio Lover” combines Jones’s smooth, mature voice and a far more polished contemporary country production than “Open Pit Mine.” The arrangement includes a mixture of spoken word and singing, like “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Like “Cold Hard Facts,” it merges the “hardworking husband” and “don’t surprise your wife” tropes. The husband is a radio DJ, and the song’s refrain interweaves with the story at the crucial moment, with the song itself becoming the kind of “good ol’ cheatin’ song” that the DJ himself likes to play.