Achy Breaky Heart

• • Written by the country songwriter and performer Don Von Tress, this was a remake of a 1991 song by the country act The Marcy Brothers, titled “Don’t Tell My Heart.” That original version had the lyrics: “Don’t tell my heart, my achy, breakin’ heart…”
  • This song best represents the country music craze in the early ’90s. As the audience for “Old Country” artists like Willie Nelson and George Strait waned, younger listeners turned to “New Country,” which had slick production and pop melodies.
  • “Achy Breaky Heart” led the charge, crossing over to Top 40 radio and becoming a huge hit. Purists hated it and blamed Cyrus for desecrating country music, but it led the way for artists like Shania Twain and Faith Hill, who had massive pop success with country songs.
  • Born and raised in Flatwoods, Kentucky, Cyrus first worked as a car salesman there, and dreamed of being a professional baseball player. He made his singing debut in father’s gospel group.
  • This song became the most popular and prominent of the United States line dancing craze of the early ’90s. It spawned a dance called “The Achy Breaky,” which became ubiquitous in country dance bars.
  • Thanks to this song, the album Some Gave All went to #1 for 17 weeks – a record for a debut artist. One artist that was held off the top spot by Billy Ray was Megadeth, whose Countdown to Extinction had to settle for #2. The group’s rather impolitic leader Dave Mustaine was not pleased; he griped to The Onion A.V. Club: “All those fat f–kin’ housewives in the Midwest, and this guy with this funny haircut, and that song, it just resonated with the American people and people bought into it, and there was no shaking it. His song was a novelty.”
  • The song may have been a novelty, but it made the Some Gave All album the best seller of 1992.
  • Cyrus claims he was too bashful to get on the floor at high school dances. He clearly came out of his shell.
  • Cyrus was signed to Mercury Records in 1990 thanks to some help from a friend he’d made, Grand Ole Opry star Del Reeves.
  • Although he never came close to an “Achy” style hit again, Billy Ray Cyrus went on to a solid career with plenty of commercial success. His second album debuted at #3 and went platinum. When his singing career stalled, he turned to acting roles, including a part in the 2001 movie Mulholland Drive.
  • Billy Ray’s daughter, Miley Cyrus, became a Disney Channel star with the show Hannah Montana, playing a girl who is secretly a pop star by night. Billy Ray had a role on the show, playing her manager.
  • While the show was running, Miley and Billy Ray released a duet called “Ready, Set, Don’t Go,” which went to #37 US, giving Billy Ray his first Top 40 since “Achy Breaky.” Miley would soon become a media sensation and by far the most famous Cyrus.
  • This was the first million-selling country single since “Islands in the Stream” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton in 1983.
  • Weird Al Yankovic did a spoof of this called “Achy Breaky Song,” in which he begs the DJ not to play “that Achy Breaky song.” Al offers alternatives like Yoko Ono, Vanilla Ice and Zamfir.
  • Weird Al donated all the profits for his spoof to the United Cerebral Palsy Association. The parodist felt the song was “mean-spirited,” so he thought that he might as well donate the money earned to a charitable cause.
  • In Billy Ray Cyrus’ 2006 song “I Want My Mullet Back,” the riff to this song is sampled in the guitar solo.
  • A rap reworking of the song by Buck 22 titled “Achy Breaky 2” entered the Hot 100 in 2014. Cyrus contributed vocals to this new version as well and also appeared in the video.
  • This was featured on the PAX TV medical drama Doc, starring none other than Billy Ray Cyrus. His character, Dr. Clint “Doc” Cassidy, hears the tune on the radio and says, “I hate that song.” The show ran from 2001 to 2004.

This was the first single to achieve triple Platinum status in Australia.
Cyrus owes a debt to Ray Charles with the line, “You can tell your mom I moved to Arkansas.” On his 1959 hit What’d I Say, Charles sang:
Tell your mama, tell your pa
I’m gonna send you back to Arkansas