The song is “I Hope You Dance,” the 2000 Lee Ann Womack hit that has been played at countless graduations, weddings and farewells. Few people who sing along know that it began in one of the worst years of its co-writer’s life, with a mother who could not stop wishing terrible things on her daughter’s husband.
“A litany of hopes”
In 1999, Nashville songwriter Tia Sillers was in the middle of a divorce she later described as brutal. Every morning her mother called, and every morning the conversation turned to the man who had hurt her daughter. She hoped he would rot in hell. She hoped he would never find happiness. Tia later told The Tennessean her mother was simply saying the things good mamas say.
“It was a litany of hopes.”
Somewhere in those calls, Tia noticed the shape of what her mother was doing: one wish after another, all starting the same way. Instead of keeping the anger, she flipped it. What if a list of hopes pointed the other direction, toward everything good you could wish for someone you love?
She already had one line written. It was the wish that the person you love never loses their sense of wonder. The rest had not come yet.
Alone at the edge of the Gulf
Tia needed to get away, so she went by herself to a beach on the Florida Gulf Coast. She sat by the water and thought about the breakup. In a 2001 interview with SongwriterUniverse, she said the ocean made her feel small and inconsequential.
That feeling did not stay heavy. As she was leaving the beach, she realized things were not as bad as they seemed and that she would get through it. That is when the ocean line arrived, the wish that someone you love will still feel small standing beside the sea. It later opened the song’s shorter third verse.
Crying through the writing session
The following week, back in Nashville, Tia walked into a writing appointment with Mark D. Sanders, the veteran writer behind hits like “Heads Carolina, Tails California.” She brought her list of hopes with her. She was still raw, and she has said she alternately cried and babbled through the session. Sanders, she recalled, made everything better.
The two finished the song in a day or two. Years later, Sanders joked that his real contribution had been to tone down Tia’s optimism a little. He also understood right away what they had. Tia remembers him telling her he had already had a career, and now he had a career song.
From a demo to Lee Ann Womack
Tia’s publishers at Famous Music played the demo for Lee Ann Womack’s producer, Mark Wright. Several artists wanted the song, and Tia has said she was not sure Lee Ann herself was eager to cut it. Wright told her she needed to record it and booked the session. The country group Sons of the Desert joined her on harmony.
Released in March 2000, “I Hope You Dance” became the title track of Lee Ann Womack’s album. It spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, crossed over to No. 14 on the Hot 100, and won the Grammy for Best Country Song, along with Song of the Year honors from both the CMA and the ACM. It remains the only No. 1 of Lee Ann Womack’s career.
In that same 2001 interview, Tia marveled at how much had changed in a single year. Twelve months earlier she had been in the middle of a divorce with no idea anything good was coming.
What her mother knew
The woman whose angry phone calls started it all did not get to see much of what followed. Tia’s mother died of cancer soon after the song became a hit. Before she passed, she told her daughter something Tia did not believe at the time: that for the rest of her life, people would walk up and tell her how the song had touched them, and she would need to receive it with humility.
Her mother was right. In a 2020 interview with American Songwriter, Tia said people have told her about weddings, about burying loved ones with the lyrics, and about finding the courage to leave relationships that were hurting them. She said it has reached the point where she can hardly meet someone who does not tell her it was their mom’s favorite song for them as a kid.
A song that started with a mother wishing the worst on one man became the song so many mothers used to wish the best for their children.
Did “I Hope You Dance” mark a moment in your own family? We would love to hear your story.