Something That We Do

The Recording and Chart History of "Something That We Do" by Clint Black

Clint Black was one of the defining figures of the late-1980s and early-1990s country music renaissance, part of a generation of new traditionalist artists who revitalized mainstream country radio with a sound that blended classic honky-tonk and country influences with contemporary production values. His 1989 debut album Killin' Time had been an extraordinary commercial and critical success, yielding five consecutive number one singles and establishing him as one of the most important new voices in country music of his era. Throughout the early 1990s he had sustained a remarkable chart run, though by the mid-1990s the country market was crowded with younger artists and the competition for chart positions had intensified considerably.

"Something That We Do" was released as a single in late 1997 from Black's album Nothin' But the Taillights, released on RCA Nashville. The album and single represented Black working within the mainstream Nashville commercial country sound of the late 1990s, a period when the genre was at historically high levels of commercial penetration in the American mainstream market. The production on "Something That We Do" was characteristic of the era's country sound: professional and polished, anchored by acoustic and electric guitar with steel guitar accents, and structured to showcase Black's distinctive baritone voice and his gift for melodic country ballads.

Black was one of the relative rarities in country music as a performing artist who was also deeply involved in his own songwriting. Throughout his career he had written or co-written the majority of his recorded material, a fact that contributed to the consistency of voice and vision across his recordings. "Something That We Do" was written by Black in collaboration with Skip Ewing, a respected Nashville songwriter whose credits extended across multiple successful country acts. The co-writing partnership brought two experienced Nashville craftsmen to the creation of a song designed to work at the highest levels of the format.

The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 20, 1997, at number 76, its initial appearance coinciding with the holiday period when radio programming was often in a holding pattern. The track held at 76 for the following two weeks before beginning a gradual descent, indicating that it had entered the chart close to its peak potential for mainstream pop crossover rather than building from a lower position. The song reached a peak Hot 100 position of 76 and spent nine weeks on the chart, a run that primarily reflected its country radio airplay feeding into the Hot 100's methodology.

On the country charts, where the record's primary commercial significance lay, "Something That We Do" performed considerably more strongly. Country radio of the late 1990s remained one of the most powerful promotional vehicles in American music, with stations reaching enormous audiences across regions where country music had deep cultural roots as well as in urban and suburban markets where the genre had expanded significantly during the 1990s boom years. The song's country chart performance placed it within the competitive landscape of a format at peak commercial health.

The timing of the release, entering the Hot 100 during December 1997, positioned the ballad appropriately for winter holiday radio programming, when stations in multiple formats tended to favor warmer, more emotionally resonant material. Love songs and romantic ballads traditionally performed well in this programming environment, and "Something That We Do" was well-suited to benefit from the seasonal preferences of radio programmers.

Within the context of Black's career, the single demonstrated his continued ability to place records on the country charts and generate mainstream pop chart visibility into the latter part of the 1990s, a period when some of his generation of new traditionalist artists had seen their commercial fortunes decline as the market evolved. His persistence and continued craft as a songwriter and performer kept him commercially relevant through the decade's end, and "Something That We Do" is one of the recordings that document that sustained professional vitality during a competitive era in Nashville commercial country music.