Love at the Five and Dime
Her song of a dime store clerk and a steel guitar player, which gave Kathy Mattea her breakthrough.
Nanci Griffith, from The Last of the True Believers (1986)
- Written by
- Nanci Griffith
- Released
- 1986
- Length
- 4:33
- Album
- The Last of the True Believers
The song follows Rita, a dime store clerk, and Eddie, an aspiring steel guitar player, over the years. Eddie ends up an insurance salesman who has left the band because of arthritis. The album cover shows a Woolworths storefront.
Kathy Mattea released it in April 1986 as the first single from Walk the Way the Wind Blows. It was her first top ten hit and peaked at number three on the country chart. Griffith recorded it again as a duet with Darius Rucker for The Dust Bowl Symphony in 1999.
Live
On the live album One Fair Summer Evening, recorded in Houston in August 1988, she explains that the recurring ting in the music is meant to be the sound of an elevator in a Woolworth's store. It was logged 29 times on setlist.fm, and she played it at Mountain Winery in Saratoga on 23 July 1994.
On stage
- 1988-08, Anderson Fair, Houston Recorded for One Fair Summer Evening.
- 1994-07-23, Mountain Winery, Saratoga, California Audience recording with the Blue Moon Orchestra.
Covers and versions
- Kathy Mattea (1986)
More songs by Nanci Griffith
St. Olav's Gate, From a Distance, Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, Outbound Plane
Sources
- Love at the Five and Dime, Wikipedia
- The Last of the True Believers, Wikipedia
- Nanci Griffith song statistics, setlist.fm