Whether it’s I Knew You Were Trouble or Fleetwood Mac, the Gallagher brothers or Cry Me A River, we love it when real life drama informs songs. And nowhere is this more common than in country music: a genre defined by comfortingly repetitive chord structures, film-esque storytelling and duets born out of the tumultuous relationships between the two people singing. Johnny and June Carter Cash. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. But most of all, Tammy Wynette and George Jones.
More than perhaps any other musical couple, Wynette and Jones, portrayed in Paramount +’s new six parter George & Tammy by Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, mined the ups and downs of their rollercoaster six years together – and their eventual reunion – in song. The lyrics of 1972’s The Ceremony comprised their actual wedding vows. At the other end, 1976’s Golden Ring traces the sad journey of a wedding band cast aside “like the love that’s dead and gone”.
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