Bobby Bare recorded outstanding material from Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Harlan Howard, Mickey Newbury, and Billy Joe Shaver, but no songwriter matched his humor, imagination, and storytelling instincts quite like Shel Silverstein.
When country singer Bobby Bare moved to Mercury Records in 1970, he entered one of the most creatively important periods of his career. Bare had already established himself as a distinctive performer, but he was never satisfied with repeating the same musical formula simply because it had worked before. He continued searching for songs with strong characters, emotional honesty, and memorable stories. At Mercury, he recorded Tom T. Hall’s “How I Got to Memphis,” along with Kris Kristofferson’s “Come Sundown” and “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends.” These recordings demonstrated Bare’s greatest strength as a singer: he could take words written by another man and deliver them with such sincerity that listeners felt as though the story belonged to him.
Bare’s admiration for songwriters extended far beyond the songs he selected for his own albums. He understood that the writer sitting quietly behind the scenes was often the person who gave the singer something meaningful to say. Throughout his career, Bare respected and supported major country songwriters such as Harlan Howard, Mickey Newbury, and Billy Joe Shaver. He also became involved in projects connected to their work, helping draw attention to writers whose songs deserved to reach wider audiences. Bobby Bare was the singer standing before the microphone, but he never forgot that the songwriter had created the world he was stepping into.
Among all the gifted writers Bare encountered, however, Shel Silverstein became the songwriter who most closely shared his unusual artistic taste. Silverstein was not a country singer competing with Bare for attention. He was a songwriter, poet, illustrator, and author whose imagination moved easily between humor, sadness, absurdity, tenderness, and sharp observations about human nature. Bare was the country singer who recognized the musical potential in those words and gave many of Silverstein’s characters a voice audiences could believe.
What makes their partnership especially remarkable is that Bare loved several Silverstein songs before he even knew who had written them. Bare once recalled hearing Burl Ives perform a song called “Time” on television. He was immediately drawn to it and later recorded it more than once, although he initially had no idea Silverstein was the songwriter. During a visit to Europe, Bare heard Marianne Faithfull sing “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.” Once again, the writing stopped him. Years later, he learned that Silverstein had written that song too. Then Bare heard “Sylvia’s Mother,” the dramatic composition made famous by Dr. Hook, and experienced the same sense of admiration.
The pattern was impossible to ignore. Again and again, Bobby Bare was falling in love with Shel Silverstein’s songs before realizing the same man had written them. It was as though Bare recognized the songwriter’s imagination before he recognized his name. Silverstein’s work possessed qualities that matched Bare perfectly. His lyrics could make an audience laugh while quietly revealing something painful underneath. His characters were often outsiders, dreamers, troublemakers, survivors, and ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations. Bare knew how to sing those stories without making them sound forced or artificial.
Their shared vision reached its greatest expression after Bobby Bare returned to RCA Records. In 1973, the singer released “Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies,” an ambitious album built around songs written by Shel Silverstein. The project is often described as one of country music’s early concept albums because it felt less like a random collection of potential singles and more like one complete world filled with stories, personalities, humor, and emotion. Silverstein provided the words and imagination. Bare provided the voice, timing, warmth, and credibility that brought those songs to life.
The album produced two of Bobby Bare’s most memorable recordings. “Daddy What If,” written by Silverstein, featured Bare singing with his five-year-old son, Bobby Bare Jr. The song unfolded as a gentle conversation between a curious child and his father, with innocent questions leading to affectionate and imaginative answers. Bare did not perform it like a dramatic studio production. He allowed it to feel intimate, natural, and deeply personal. The recording became one of the clearest examples of Silverstein’s ability to write simply without losing emotional depth.
The same album also included “Marie Laveau,” another Silverstein composition and the only country single of Bobby Bare’s career to reach No. 1. The song told a colorful, darkly humorous story about the legendary Louisiana figure. Silverstein’s writing supplied the unforgettable character and surprising narrative, while Bare’s performance gave the song its mischievous energy. His delivery moved effortlessly between seriousness and comedy, making listeners feel as though he were telling an old story around a table rather than performing for a recording session.
Their collaboration continued with “Singin’ in the Kitchen,” another Silverstein-written song that became the centerpiece of a warm, family-oriented project. The recording created the feeling of relatives gathering together and singing for the pleasure of sharing music, rather than trying to create something polished or perfect. It reflected Bare’s affection for songs that sounded close to everyday life. The title song later received Grammy recognition, further confirming the creative strength of the partnership between songwriter Shel Silverstein and singer Bobby Bare.
Silverstein also wrote “The Winner,” one of Bare’s most entertaining story songs. Its narrator proudly describes surviving a violent confrontation, but as the details unfold, listeners slowly realize that his definition of victory is deeply questionable. Silverstein wrote the clever and increasingly ridiculous story, while Bare delivered it with the conversational timing necessary to make every revelation land. The recording proved how effectively the two men understood one another: Silverstein created the character, and Bare made the audience believe the character was sitting directly in front of them.
One detail must be kept clear. “Drop Kick Me, Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life)” was not written by Shel Silverstein. It was written by songwriter Paul Craft and later recorded by Bobby Bare. Although the song is sometimes incorrectly grouped with Bare’s Silverstein material because of its humorous and unusual title, it belongs to a different songwriter. Bare’s recording of it still demonstrated his attraction to unconventional material, but it was not part of the Bare–Silverstein songwriting partnership.
The bond between these two men was not built on their performing the same role. Shel Silverstein was the songwriter who created the lyrics, stories, and characters. Bobby Bare was the country singer who interpreted those songs and carried them to the public. Their talents were different, but perfectly complementary. Silverstein needed a singer who would not weaken his unusual ideas by making them too conventional. Bare needed a songwriter whose imagination was broad enough to match his own independent musical instincts.
Bobby Bare worked with many of country music’s greatest writers, but Shel Silverstein became something more than another source of strong material. He became the songwriter whose humor, tenderness, strangeness, and humanity seemed naturally designed for Bare’s voice. Before Bobby Bare truly knew Shel Silverstein, he already knew the songs. Once the songwriter and the singer finally came together, they created a body of music that remains funny, moving, unpredictable, and unmistakably their own.