"I'm Over You." "I'm Over You." "I'm Over You."
Whether we’re on the receiving end or the telling end of this statement, most of us can relate to it in some form or fashion. Sometimes it’s easy: “I’m over you.” Say it once or hear it once, and it sticks. But sometimes it’s our own internal voice repeating it over and over trying to prove to ourselves that it’s true. “I’m over you. I swear I’m over you. I am.”
Keith Whitley gave this feeling life in his song, “I’m Over You,” which was recorded in 1989 but released posthumously in January of 1990, following his death.
“I’m Over You” is a crying, crooning country classic in sound and in story: the narrator says he’s over the woman he’s singing about. In trying to make her believe it’s true, he’s really trying to convince himself of it, too. He denies what she has heard: through close friends and small town talk she hears he is drinking too much and not doing well, but he says that it’s not true, “I’m over you.” But the lyrics are cleverly placed proving that he is, in fact, not over her. He says it outright in the chorus: “You heard I'm drinkin' more than I should/And I ain't been lookin' all that good/Someone told you I was takin' it rough/Why they makin' those stories up/When I'm over you?” The obvious true feelings are expressed in the first lines of the song: “Where there's a cloud don't mean there's rain/Tears in my eyes don't mean there's pain/Don't flatter yourself, I'm over you.”
The ‘don’t flatter yourself’ line is classic, and one — as humans — we can all relate to. He flips the script a bit by trying to convince her that her thinking he is not over their relationship is arrogant and she is flattering herself when she shouldn’t. He is saying she thinks too highly of herself if she thinks he’s not over it. Ouch. The song touches on the internal turmoil he and she are both experiencing.
The turmoil of tragedy of the song is inherently humanistic. Two people, both of whom are stubborn, and won’t admit the pain. The discussion going on in “I’m Over You” is a painful description of who we are due to our human nature. We are stubborn people.
Considering the song to be a country classic, and timelessly relevant, many artists have covered Keith Whitley’s “I’m Over You.” Specifically, two large name artists who have recorded and cut a version of this song are Chris Young and Dylan Scott. For Young, the cover was released on his Voices EP in 2010 and for Scott, the cover was released on his An Old Memory album in 2019. Both voices, like Whitley’s, are rich and southern to the definition. Young and Scott have a similar roughness in their rich twang, which is what most of their fans love most. Additionally, both artists (though very contemporary and modern country singers), are very outspoken with the influence Keith Whitley had on their musical career.
Both artists do a fantastic job of maintaining the honor and glory of the song’s originality in their covers. Each one sounds very attuned to their sound, respectively, but the cover itself is a respectable homage and tribute to the song, it’s relevance throughout the last three decades, and in tribute to Keith Whitley. It’s also no coincidence that the song ends with the repetition 3 times of “I’m over you” as if the narrator is pleading to himself to believe it’s true. Saying it enough as to memorize it, and maybe by chance it’ll naturally seep into his very being. Again, human nature. We can all relate even if we’re too stubborn to admit it. In addition to the repetition tactic of 3 “I’m over you’s,” there are also 3 decades of “I’m over you” versions, proving Keith Whitley to still be a prominent country music legend, speaking to us through music even to this day.
Let me know which version you like the best in the comments!
