"Chains" is a song written by
Hal Bynum
Harold L. Bynum (September 29, 1934 – June 2, 2022) was an American songwriter associated with the Outlaw country movement in the 1970s. Bynum wrote more than 200 songs for popular country artists, including Kenny Rogers (" Lucille"), Patty L ...
and Bud Reneau, and recorded by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
artist
Patty Loveless
Patty Loveless (born Patricia Lee Ramey, January 4, 1957) is an American country music singer. She began performing in her teenaged years before signing her first recording contract with MCA Records' Nashville division in 1985. While her first ...
. It was released in December 1989 as the fifth single from her album ''
Honky Tonk Angel''.
Background
"Chains" was Loveless's second career No. 1 hit, with both this song and the earlier "Timber I'm Falling In Love" coming from ''Honky Tonk Angel''.
In its original form, the song had a much slower tempo than the one recorded by Loveless. Tony Brown, one of her producers at the time, decided to speed up the tempo for the arrangement she recorded.
The song charted for 26 weeks on the
Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...
chart, reaching No. 1 during the week of March 10, 1990.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
References
*Whitburn, Joel, "Top Country Songs: 1944-2005," 2006.
1989 singles
Patty Loveless songs
Song recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)
Songs written by Hal Bynum
MCA Nashville Records singles
Music videos directed by John Lloyd Miller
1988 songs
{{1988-country-song-stub