How Can I Help You Say Goodbye

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“How Can I Help You Say Goodbye”
“How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” cover
Promotional CD-Single Cover
(Unreleased To Public)
Single by Patty Loveless
from the album Only What I Feel
A-side How Can I Help You Say Goodbye
B-side How About You
Released 03/19/94
Format 7in vinyl single, Cassette Single
Recorded 1993
Genre Country
Length 5:00
Label Sony/Epic
Writer(s) Burton Banks Collins & Karen Taylor-Good
Producer Emory Gordy, Jr.
Patty Loveless singles chronology
"You Will"
(1993)
"How Can I Help You Say Goodbye"
(1994)
"I Try to Think About Elvis"
(1994)

How Can I Help You Say Goodbye is a single release by Patty Loveless, recorded at Sony/Epic in the early spring of 1993. It was included on her first album with Sony/Epic Records, Only What I Feel, her sixth career album. The single was released in March 1994. It was the fourth single released from the album.

[edit] Background

7 in vinyl single
7 in vinyl single
Video Frame from the accompanying music video, filmed 24 February 1994.
Video Frame from the accompanying music video, filmed 24 February 1994.

Loveless' album, "Only What I Feel" had sold over 650,000 copies and had been certified as an RIAA Gold Album. Sony/Epic was receiving requests from radio stations that this song be released as a single, and in March 1994 it was released. This song climbed up the charts, reaching #3 in June. It was also nominated for the 1995 Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song. The accompanying video was also nominated by both the CMA and the ACM as 1995 Video Of The Year.

According to Loveless: "... all the experiences I've gone through. The traumas in my life, but, I feel a lot of people have gone through, maybe at one point, in their life. Leaving a hometown where they were going to school, and growing up as a child, and all of a sudden you're shocked into having to make a move. And I lost a parent back in 79, and also, I've been through a divorce, so you know, I have been through all those things that have emotionally been a very emotional trauma to me. Moving away from my hometown was very difficult. So this song...that's the reason that the tears flowed. I went into the studio, and was trying to do a demo on it. Just to see what my voice would sound like, and I couldn't get beyond the second verse. Because the third verse of the mother ended up dying, in the third verse is still trying to teach her daughter about changes. There is change in life you have to accept it, and let it turn into something great and good, because that's all a part of life. And also, goodbye is a part of our life. We say goodbye to people everyday of our lives, which is very hard. And this song just touched me so much that I felt like yeah, I had written this song..."

How Can I Help You Say Goodbye was nominated for the following awards:

  • 1995 Academy of Country Music (ACM) Song Of The Year
  • 1995 Academy of Country Music (ACM) Video Of The Year
  • 1995 Grammy Awards Song Of The Year
  • 1994 Country Music Association (CMA) Video Of The Year
  • 1994 Country Music Association (CMA) Song Of The Year

The song charted for 19 weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart, reaching #3 during the week of 4 June 1994.

[edit] External Links