Song of friendship

Don’s song of friendship still resonates

Commins Calling
Michael Commins

MORE than 30 years have rolled by since Don Williams took ‘You’re My Best Friend’ to the top of the American country charts. It was the number that made the tall Texan an international star and one of the most popular country performers of that decade.
For a number of years, Don Williams had the Midas touch. Song after song turned gold for the man who you could almost say invented the ‘laid-back’ southern style of easy listening country music.
Wayland Holyfield was the composer of ‘You’re My Best Friend’. “It was written about my wife, but also about a lot of people’s wives, and girlfriends. As a romantic, I love to be able to do a song like that and have people respond to it,” he once said when commenting on the success of the hit song.
Strange as it may seem, it took Don quite some time to warm to the song despite Wayland playing it to him on the tape recorder on several occasions. Don suggested some changes along the way and Wayland went to work on them. It was almost a year before Don thought the lyrics were ‘just fine’ and he went and cut the number.
The song hit the top spot in the American charts ten weeks after it debuted on Billboard. For the songwriter, it was his first number one without a co-writer. Wayland said: “It really was great when the song went up the charts and became number one. What it did for me was prove to myself that I can do this. You do it once by yourself, maybe you can do it again.”
Wherever Don Williams performs at shows, either in the States or around the world, audiences invariably join him for a sing-along of the chorus of ‘You’re My Best Friend’. It has become a real country standard and is synonymous with the man from Texas. Such was his early impact in the 1970s that the acclaimed Country Music People magazine in the UK named Williams as ‘Artist of the Decade’ for his contribution to popularising country music across such a wide spectrum.
For Wayland Holyfield, ‘You’re My Best Friend’ was one of a number of hits he composed for Don Williams. However, it was another song that brought him a lot of extra fame when it featured as one of the prime songs on the song track of the Urban Cowboy film starring John Travolta. ‘Could I Have This Dance (For the Rest of My Life)’ was performed by Canadian singer Ann Murray on the soundtrack and also hit the top spot in the American charts.
Holyfield commented: “I am proud of the song ‘Could I Have This Dance’ because it is used in so many weddings [listed as one of the top five wedding songs]. Touching people’s lives is what songwriting is really about. I am proud to be able to say that I am a professional songwriter and that my music has had an impact in some small way on those who have heard it. What a wonderful legacy.”

You’re My Best Friend

You placed gold on my finger
You brought love like I’ve never known
You gave life to our children
And to me a reason to go on.

Chorus
You’re my bread when I’m hungry
You’re my shelter from troubled winds
You’re my anchor in life’s ocean
But most of all you’re my best friend.

When I need hope and inspiration
You’re always strong when I’m tired and weak
I could search this whole world over
You’ll still be everything that I need.

Chorus
You’re my bread when I’m hungry
You’re my shelter from troubled winds
You’re my anchor in life’s ocean
But most of all you’re my best friend.