On 29 July 1989, Reba McEntire reached number one on the US country chart with her cover of "Cathy's Clown," a song originally made famous by the Everly Brothers nearly 30 years earlier. The single, taken from her Platinum-selling album Sweet Sixteen, marked a notable chart success and stood out as the only one of the album's four singles to top the country chart, the others peaking within the top ten.

Rather than swapping the song's genders, McEntire reworked its perspective, singing as a woman observing the heartbreak rather than as the wronged man in the Everly Brothers' original. The Everly Brothers' 1960 version had itself been groundbreaking, becoming their first single for Warner Bros. Records and the first to top both the US Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart simultaneously, spending five weeks at number one in America and seven in Britain. The song is also notable for its unconventional structure, opening with the chorus rather than a verse.