![]() ![]() “I always close my set with that one because that’s my signature song,” Raye shares proudly. How could he not? After all, it was the pivotal rocket that catapulted his career and the song he’s become synonymous with. ![]() Over three decades later, Raye continues to perform “Love, Me” out on the road. Barnes was playing electric guitar with me at the time, and I remember telling him that it struck me that many people would do the same-sign a card to someone without using their name, just 'Love, Me.' That's when both talented songsmiths discussed the concept, ideated a chorus, story, and soon after, the completed soon-to-be hit. "She didn't sign it with her name she wrote: 'Love, Me.' Max T. Ewing, actively pursuing an artist career, was gearing up to leave Nashville for a tour with The Judds when his then-girlfriend passed him a personal card. "Love, Me" is very much a real-life inspired song. Barnes just wrote and you might like it." He played it, and of course, Skip Ewing sounded wonderful on the demo, and by the time we got to the chorus, Jerry and I looked at each other and thought, 'Wow, that's pretty good!'" "You know the old saying a 'top drawer song' versus a 'bottom drawer song'? Well, he literally reached in his top drawer of his desk, pulled out a cassette and said, 'This is a song Skip Ewing and Max T. I wasn't going to, but I got a good feeling about it," Raye recollects. "Jerry and I were getting up to leave to get to another meeting and Troy said, 'You know what? There's one more song I want to play you. That’s when it found its way to music publishing veteran Troy Tomlinson, who later pitched it to Raye and Opryland Music Group’s Jerry Fuller just as they were concluding their meeting. ![]() Thankfully, his publishing company thought otherwise and began pitching the sentimental tune to other artists. "I played it for my producer at the time with MCA and he told me it was a terrible song that would never work on radio and that I should consider trying to write radio hits, not songs like 'Love, Me'," shares Ewing, who was signed to MCA Nashville as an artist then. The massive success of "Love, Me" was something both songwriters did not see coming as well, as co-writer Skip Ewing recalls. When I play it live, everybody sings along across different generations and age groups. And the thing you never anticipate is that it's a song that is still this popular 31 years later. "Literally three weeks in after the release of 'Love, Me,' we knew we were going to have a hit. "It was jumping 12 to 15 spots each week, to where the first single would stay two weeks in the same spot and then it would move two spots, or three, and then it might stay up there," he recollects. While Raye and Epic Records were expecting "Love, Me" to have a decent chart run, they weren't ready for its rapid ascend to the prized No. After all, 1991 saw Diamond Rio's "Meet In The Middle," Alan Jackson's "Don't Rock the Jukebox" and Brooks and Dunn's "Brand New Man" fly to the top of the charts, and they were all upbeat songs. It was a slow ballad, not an uptempo high-energy number, which radio programmers typically prefer. The song's chart run was a surprise to Raye and his team.
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