Faith Hill – Just To Hear You Say That You Love Me

One chart called it a No.1 and the other stopped it at No.3, and before either of them it was a Diane Warren song a pop singer couldn’t make a hit.

On August 14, 1998, Radio & Records ranked Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me No.1 on its country chart. Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks never let it past No.3. That split is why the duet appears on some lists of the decade’s country No.1s and not on others, and it suits a record that reached country radio by a roundabout route. Faith Hill and Tim McGraw’s second duet started as a Diane Warren song on a pop singer’s album that barely registered, and within two years it was at the top of country radio.

Keep watching: Tim McGraw – It’s Your Love · explore more →

The first artist to record it was Chynna Phillips of Wilson Phillips, the daughter of John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas. Her version, produced by Desmond Child, came out as a single in 1996 and peaked at No.64 in Australia early in 1997. That was a quiet result for a Warren song, and it might have been the end of the story if Nashville artists had not started looking through Warren’s catalog for material in the late 1990s.

Hill heard a duet in it. Faith was her first album since marrying McGraw, and the couple had already topped the country chart in 1997 with It’s Your Love, a song from his album on which she was the featured voice. This time the arrangement reversed. Dann Huff and Hill produced the track, recording at the Music Mill in Nashville and the Bennett House in Franklin, Tennessee, and Warner Bros. billed the single as Faith Hill with Tim McGraw. On their first hit she had been the guest on his Curb record. Now he was the guest on hers.

Two charts, two answers

Warner Bros. sent the single to country radio on May 22, 1998, as the follow-up to This Kiss. It climbed through the summer and reached No.3 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks on the chart dated August 22, holding there the following week. Radio & Records, whose country chart counted airplay differently, had already put it at No.1 for the week of August 14. On that chart it was McGraw’s fifth consecutive No.1 and Hill’s third, which is how one record came to be both a chart-topper and a No.3 at the same moment.

Outside America, the song had a much shorter life. After This Kiss crossed over, Warner Bros. prepared an international edition of Faith, and the duet was one of the tracks cut to make room for new material, including Hill’s version of Piece of My Heart. The official video, released with the single in 1998, now sits on Hill’s own channel, and for many listeners outside the United States it is the only place the song ever reached them.

That history explains why the record sits slightly outside the usual accounts of Hill and McGraw. It was not their first duet, it was not a Billboard No.1, and it was missing from the version of the album most of the world bought. What it did was prove the partnership worked in both directions. On It’s Your Love she had supported him, and here he supported her, and country radio sent it to the top of one chart either way. Before 1998 was out, the next singles from each of them went to No.1, and their duets had become a format of their own.