Reba McEntire Shares Story Behind ‘The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia’

“The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” is famed for the twisted story it manages to tell in under four minutes, and now Reba McEntire has shared the story behind her take on the country classic. As part of the Vevo Footnotes series, she breaks down her process from choosing the song to shooting the video.

McEntire explains that she decided on recording her version when she and her co-producer Tony Brown were seeking out another older song like “Fancy” to feature on her upcoming album, For My Broken Heart. The first tape Reba grabbed in the room was “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.” “I handed it to [Brown],” she shares, “and said ‘what about this one?’ It felt like a sign.”

The track was originally written in 1972, just shy of twenty years before Reba’s recording, by country songwriter Bobby Russell. Despite all his work on the track, Russell wasn’t happy with the outcome, and was reluctant to even record a demo. His then-wife Vicky Lawrence, a performer on the Carol Burnett show, disagreed, believing he had a hit on his hands. Her instincts were correct—her recording of the song would reach number one on the Hot 100 chart in 1973. McEntire recalls that she “got to sing the song with Vicki on her talk show in the early 90s,”

The video for Reba’s version of the track added more detail to the song’s story through interludes of spoken dialogue. “Jack Cole directed the video,” she says. “I also worked with Jack on the music videos for ‘Is There Life Out There’ and ‘Fancy.’” The video features Reba as the narrator, or “little sister,” as both a young woman in flashbacks and a 60-year-old in the present. “The biggest thing I learned from doing movies and videos is to be patient, it takes time!” she explains. “It took two whole days to shoot the video. One whole day was just taking the photographs you see.”

“My version of the song only went to number 12 on the charts,” Reba reflects, “but it’s become one of my fans’ most favorite songs of my career.”

Buy Reba McEntire’s “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” on vinyl now.