Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
My answer is "Amarillo By Morning"...a spare, elegant, sad song with just enough hope to be uplifting in the end ("I ain't got a dime but what I got is mine,
I ain't rich but Lord I'm free"). The original recording by Terry Stafford was just a big schmaltzy for me, but George Srait perfected it.
What say you??
"Amarillo by Morning" popped into my head as soon as I read your title. As hard as I tried to hate country music when I was a kid, that one hung on like a tick. When I finally got an iTunes account years later, that's the first song I bought. My tastes run toward Americana/Alt country (like the Turnpike Troubadours mentioned earlier), and I can listen to just about anything by Willie or Johnny Cash, but that song is hard to top.
"I Can Still Make Cheyenne" is another gem in a similar vein, sort of an earnest, rodeo version of that Brad Paisley fishin' song.