"Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House" is a song co-written by

Warren Haynes Warren Haynes (born April 6, 1960) is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his work as longtime guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a ...

Dennis Robbins Dennis Anthony Robbins (born August 23, 1949) is an American musician who first made himself known as a guitarist in the band Rockets. After his departure from The Rockets, he began a career in country music, recording three major-label albums an ...

and Bobby Boyd. It was originally recorded by Robbins himself in 1987 for

MCA Records MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later became part of Universal Music Group. Pre-history MCA Inc., a powerful talent agency and a television production company, entered the recorded music business in 1962 wit ...

and charted at number 71 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' country charts. The

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

to Robbins' version was "

The Church on Cumberland Road "The Church on Cumberland Road" is a song written by Bob DiPiero, John Scott Sherrill and Dennis Robbins, and recorded by American country music group Shenandoah. It was released in January 1989 as the second single from their album ''The Road No ...

," which was later a number one hit in 1989 for Shenandoah. The song was later 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

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...

for his album ''

No Fences ''No Fences'' is the second studio album by the American country music artist Garth Brooks. It was released on August 27, 1990, and reached No. 1 on ''Billboard's'' Top Country Albums chart. The album also reached No. 3 on the ''Billboard'' 200. ...

'' in 1990. His rendition was released as the album's third single and his fifth consecutive number one hit.

Content

The song is a moderate up-tempo with a

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

intro. Its lyrics describe the relationship between the narrator and his wife, whom he considers a perfect complement. The title is a

double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...

, using

poker hands In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called ''hands'', according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high ...

to describe how well the couple complements each other, and that they plan to have children. In his book ''Redneck Liberation: Country Music as Theology'', author David Fillingim cited "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House" as an "upbeat honky-tonk romp" that showed his "more traditional country music styles".

Background and Production

Garth Brooks Version

Garth provided the following background information on the song in the CD booklet liner notes from ''

The Hits The Hits was a music video channel broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland, owned by Box Television. On 15 August 2008 it was rebranded as 4Music. Overview and availability The channel showcased a range of pop centred on chart hits and cur ...

'': ''This song came to me through Jon Northrup. He was doing a demo deal, and "Two of a Kind" was one of the four songs he was pitching for a demo. When I heard it, I said, "I wish you all the luck on your deal, but if for some reason it falls through, I'd love to have this." He called me three months later and told me I could have it if I wanted it. I immediately cut it. And to this day, even though it's a small, light-hearted song, it's one of the strongest parts of our live show. People just seem to connect with this song. This is a big point to writers and artists out there, especially myself, that sometimes intense gets the point across, but don't forget to show 'em your sense of humor.''Garth Brooks - The Hits: transcription from the CD booklet (bar code 7-2438-29689-2-4)

Dennis Robbins Version

Dennis Robbins provided some background information about the song while on an interview on "The Paul Leslie Hour": ''I did Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House on MCA. It charted, it got to around 62 on the chart and that dropped off. And I got a call one night from this guy and he said: “You don’t know me but my name is Garth Brooks. And I just got a record deal on Capitol Records and I heard a song that’s the best song I’ve heard since I’ve been in Nashville called “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House”. And I was wondering if you’d put it on hold for me.” And I said: “Well, I’ll tell you what, you know I gave that song to Shenandoah, they just a number one, we had a number on hit with “The Church on Cumberland Road” and they called me for some more songs and that was one of the songs that I gave Marty Raybon with Shenandoah.” And so I said: “I tell you what, they should have let me know something by now and if you call me back tomorrow night about this time, I’ll find out tomorrow and I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow night if they’re gonna use that song or not.” And so I called Marty the next day and I asked him: “Hey, what’s up with the song? I mean are you guys thinking you’re gonna do it”? And he said: “Well Dennis we talked to our producer and we made a deal and an agreement with him that we weren’t gonna, you know we would have to listen to him when it came to picking the songs to record and he told us when he heard that song: “We’re not doing any Hank Williams sounding songs.” So I’m sorry, but we’re gonna have to pass on that.” And I said: “Okay man, well that’s fine.” And of course later on that night I got a callback from Garth and he asked me: “What did you found out about the song”? And I said: “Yeah, you got it and I won’t pitch it to anybody and I hope you have better luck with it than I did.” And he did that song pretty much, you can listen if you ever heard my version of it, he did it pretty much like the way I did it. So I was really impressed with it. I love his version of it, it was awesome. ''

Chart positions

Dennis Robbins Version

Garth Brooks Version

Year-end charts

References

{{Garth Brooks singles 1987 singles 1991 singles 1987 songs Dennis Robbins songs Garth Brooks songs Songs written by Dennis Robbins Song recordings produced by Allen Reynolds MCA Records singles Capitol Records Nashville singles Songs written by Bobby Boyd (songwriter)