Hey
Dialophiles! You ever get the feeling that you’re being watched? Maybe you feel
as if somebody is in the room with you, even though you don’t see anyone?
Ronnie Milsap sure did, though instead of chalking it up to unsubstantiated
paranoia or a ghostly encounter, he attributed it to marital infidelity.
Tonight, the Dial tunes into Ronnie’s song about that very topic… 1983’s “Stranger
In My House”!
“There’s a silence here between us… I’ve never heard before… And I can’t find the love in her eyes anymore…”
The first single pushed to radio from his 1983 LP Keyed Up, Milsap sings of the recognition that his love affair is falling apart, and his suspicion that another man has come between him and his lady. This was to be Ronnie’s final pop crossover hit, landing at a respectable #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1984.
While I never really got into the country music scene of the ‘90s or beyond, the early ‘80s “Urban Cowboy Movement”, inspired by the 1980 John Travolta / Debra Winger film of the same name, still sounds great to me, even to this day. Milsap was one of the main proponents of Urban Cowboy, a slick blend of country, rock, and pop, with major crossover hits like “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World”, “Smoky Mountain Rain”, and the Chuck Jackson cover “Any Day Now”.
“Is it somebody we both know… or somebody she just met? Is she loving him in her mind while she’s lying here in my bed?”
While all of those previously mentioned songs hit #1 on the country singles chart, “Stranger”, oddly enough, broke Milsap’s streak of ten chart toppers, by stalling at US country #5. The story goes that a Denver Colorado country station refused to play the cut because they believed it sounded too much like Led Zeppelin (REALLY, Denver, REALLY ?!?!?), which kept the song from realizing it’s US #1 country potential.
Thinking it over, it seems unlikely to me that ONE station, even one in a large market like Denver, could have THAT much influence on a song’s success, especially if we assume that ALL OTHER country stations in the country WERE playing Ronnie’s tune. The only way I could see this happening is if the rest of the songs in the country top 5 at that point were incredibly close to each other in terms of airplay and sales numbers. That way, the lost recognition from the Denver station could conceivably cause a chart drop of four notches. It’s a damn shame though, Ronnie deserved a higher position on both the country and pop charts with this classic track.
He didn’t let that stop him though, as he rebounded back to #1 with the follow up single “Don’t You Know How Much I Love You”, and continued to enjoy success in the country format well into the early ‘90s.
“Suspicions lead to questions, and questions to alibis… is it just my imagination, or has her love turned into lies?”
Ronnie revisited “Stranger” in 2007 on the CMT television series “Crossroads”, re-imagined as a duet with then hot Chicano rock group Los Lonely Boys, who hit big with 2004’s “Heaven”. Milsap handled the signature piano work throughout, in addition to the first verse and chorus, and Los Lonely Boys handled the second verse and the rest of the instrumentation.
So give Ronnie’s final top 40 entry a spin. A song that as far as the Dial is concerned, doesn’t sound at all out of place mixed among the hits of Duran Duran, Hall & Oates, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. Just make sure to check your home for intruders… physical… or musical!
“There’s a stranger in my house… somebody here that I can’t see. Stranger in my house… Somebody here trying to take her away from me.”
“There’s a silence here between us… I’ve never heard before… And I can’t find the love in her eyes anymore…”
The first single pushed to radio from his 1983 LP Keyed Up, Milsap sings of the recognition that his love affair is falling apart, and his suspicion that another man has come between him and his lady. This was to be Ronnie’s final pop crossover hit, landing at a respectable #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1984.
While I never really got into the country music scene of the ‘90s or beyond, the early ‘80s “Urban Cowboy Movement”, inspired by the 1980 John Travolta / Debra Winger film of the same name, still sounds great to me, even to this day. Milsap was one of the main proponents of Urban Cowboy, a slick blend of country, rock, and pop, with major crossover hits like “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World”, “Smoky Mountain Rain”, and the Chuck Jackson cover “Any Day Now”.
“Is it somebody we both know… or somebody she just met? Is she loving him in her mind while she’s lying here in my bed?”
While all of those previously mentioned songs hit #1 on the country singles chart, “Stranger”, oddly enough, broke Milsap’s streak of ten chart toppers, by stalling at US country #5. The story goes that a Denver Colorado country station refused to play the cut because they believed it sounded too much like Led Zeppelin (REALLY, Denver, REALLY ?!?!?), which kept the song from realizing it’s US #1 country potential.
Thinking it over, it seems unlikely to me that ONE station, even one in a large market like Denver, could have THAT much influence on a song’s success, especially if we assume that ALL OTHER country stations in the country WERE playing Ronnie’s tune. The only way I could see this happening is if the rest of the songs in the country top 5 at that point were incredibly close to each other in terms of airplay and sales numbers. That way, the lost recognition from the Denver station could conceivably cause a chart drop of four notches. It’s a damn shame though, Ronnie deserved a higher position on both the country and pop charts with this classic track.
He didn’t let that stop him though, as he rebounded back to #1 with the follow up single “Don’t You Know How Much I Love You”, and continued to enjoy success in the country format well into the early ‘90s.
“Suspicions lead to questions, and questions to alibis… is it just my imagination, or has her love turned into lies?”
Ronnie revisited “Stranger” in 2007 on the CMT television series “Crossroads”, re-imagined as a duet with then hot Chicano rock group Los Lonely Boys, who hit big with 2004’s “Heaven”. Milsap handled the signature piano work throughout, in addition to the first verse and chorus, and Los Lonely Boys handled the second verse and the rest of the instrumentation.
So give Ronnie’s final top 40 entry a spin. A song that as far as the Dial is concerned, doesn’t sound at all out of place mixed among the hits of Duran Duran, Hall & Oates, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. Just make sure to check your home for intruders… physical… or musical!
“There’s a stranger in my house… somebody here that I can’t see. Stranger in my house… Somebody here trying to take her away from me.”
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