I’m listening to Kirsty MacColl’s excellent “Kite” album I only discovered the other day, and it has a country song with the fabulous title “Don’t Come The Cowboy With Me, Sonny Jim!”.
Well, I muffed another one Danny Kortchmar, not Don Henley, wrote You Must Not Be Drinking Enough. It’s still a good call, as Kortchmar isn’t a country guy, either.
Here’s Henley. You're Not Drinking Enough - YouTube
Here’s Earl Thomas Conley on the same song. You Must Not Be Drinking Enough - YouTube
I like Henley’s better.
The entire ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ album is a fine country album.
I’d hardly call the Supersuckers a country band, but “Must’ve Been High” is an excellent country album!
That’s the formula: turn down the band relative to the vocals, add an acoustic guitar, and above all, “country up” the accent.
“Tomorrow Never Knows” is about as far from country as you can get. But the chord progression (I-bVII) fits in with bluegrass. We did a version that fooled everyone (we added a IV chord change, and changed the lyrics, “it is not dying” to “it ain’t dyin’”.
ZZ Top - She’s A Heartbreaker
Elvis Costello - Stranger in the House
Fountains of Wayne - Hung Up On You
These are a lot easier to find than you might think. In the 1960s, it was apparently required by law for every lounge lizard and crooner to put on cowboy gear and record an album of country standards.
Characteristic example: Nancy Sinatra’s Country My Way. There are probably hundreds of these.
Seriously? All the songs mentioned in this thread, and I get ninja’d on “Hung up on You” by only 20 minutes? 
Solid country tune. Goddamn, but Schlessinger and Collingwood can write some catchy songs.
Now: is The Beast In Me a country song?
Written by long serving British rocker Dave Edmunds, for his father in law.
Johnny Cash.
The Beast In Me *was written by Nick Lowe (who was the son-in-law of the spoilered person). Both Lowe and Edmunds are long-serving British rockers and were in Rockpile – easy mistake.
Tommy Shaw from Styx put out a bluegrass album - The Great Divide.
Brian May wrote, “'39”, for A Night at the Opera. A nice country-ish tune. About space travel.
Jerry Garcia and David Grisman wrote blue-grassy country tunes. My favorite is ‘Sweet Sunny South’
Goddamit. Aaaaargh! I had to get two words (Nick Lowe) right and…
…and of course you’re right, Gordon. I’ve let Nick Lowe down; I’ve let The Straight Dope Down; I’ve let myself down; and worst of all, I’ve let down
Johnny Fucking Cash
BTW I saw Rockpile back in the late seventies - Edmunds, Lowe, Bremner and all - and they were crap.
Sigh
j
**Warren Zevon[/], normally a rocker through and through, decided to try his hand at a very country song. Here is the result, complete with twangy guitars and Dwight Yoakum on background vocals:
It’s a great song.
Also, I think there are a number of Eagles songs that could be considered country. Peaceful Easy Feeling, Tequila Sunrise, Desperado (almost the entire album) and others. Lots of country artists cover them, and Don Henley has done country songs with other artists.
The Minus Five album of the same name (an all-time favorite “dark” album) has one overtly country song, “Cigarettes, Coffee and Booze”:
- Your mama knew it, now I know it too
Across the kitchen table, she barely looked at you
The paperbacks were piled up, she read them all right through
Saying all you really need is
Cigarettes, coffee and booze
Cigarettes, coffee and booze*
Great example. I’m slapping myself that I didn’t think of it.
Here’s one: Send Me the Heart by Denny Laine of Wings
Thumbelina from the fantastic “Learning To Crawl” album by the Pretenders. Though it’s arguably more of a rockabilly song than country, but we all know those are grey differences.
My 8-year-old son introduced me to a current big hit, “Old Town Road,” a country song (mostly) by a 20-year-old rap artist named Lil Nas X. He later did a version with Billy Ray Cyrus.
Also…someone upthread was wondering about “Wild Horses.” It was definitely composed by Jagger and Richards — you see them recording it in early 1970 in the film Gimme Shelter.
(Though I see a Parsons fan has defaced the “Wild Horses” Wikipedia page…temporarily, I’m sure. Sad, because it distracts from the real, undisputed, wonderful influence Parsons did have on his friend Richards during that time period).