"Norma Jean Riley" is a song written by Rob Honey,

Monty Powell Monty Powell (born June 1, 1961) is an American country music songwriter best known for collaborating with Keith Urban, and for producing albums by Diamond Rio. Powell's first songwriting credit was a jingle for an Allstate commercial. After mov ...

and Dan Truman, 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, ...

group

Diamond Rio Diamond Rio is an American country music band. The band was founded in 1982 as an attraction for the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, Tennessee, and was originally known as the Grizzly River Boys, then the Tennessee River Boys. It was fou ...

. It was released on March 23, 1992 as the fourth single from their self-titled album. Unlike the four other singles released from the album, a music video was not made for this song.

Content

"Norma Jean Riley" is a very upbeat, bluegrass influenced song where the narrator is pining for Norma Jean Riley's affections. In each verse, he comes up with different ways to get her attention. By the time the song is over, he is planning to propose to her. The song was originally titled "Pretty Little Lady" until co-writer and producer

suggested that song would be improved if the female focus had a name.

Chart performance

The song peaked at number 2 on The '' Billboard'' Hot Country Songs chart and number 3 on Canada's ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' country chart.

Year-end charts

References

1992 singles Diamond Rio songs Arista Nashville singles Songs written by Monty Powell 1991 songs {{1992-country-song-stub