A classic given fresh footprints—Dwight Yoakam sings “Act Naturally” like a man who’s learned to laugh at his bruises, turning sorrow into stride and heartache into a little daylight on the floor.
Let’s anchor the facts before we follow the feeling. “Act Naturally” is Yoakam’s salute to Buck Owens, cut for his tribute album Dwight Sings Buck (New West, October 23, 2007) with Yoakam himself producing. On the official track list it’s track 5, running about 2:33–2:34—a tight, no-waste take that sits right in the record’s opening run of Bakersfield standards.
The lineage is golden. “Act Naturally” was written by Johnny Russell (with a credit to Voni Morrison) and first made famous by Buck Owens & His Buckaroos, who carried it to No. 1 on the Billboard country chart in 1963—Owens’s first chart-topper and a cornerstone of the Bakersfield sound. The Beatles put their stamp on it two years later, handing the mic to Ringo Starr on 1965’s Help! (U.K. LP) and U.S. single sides. Then, in a sweet full-circle moment, Buck and Ringo cut a 1989 duet that climbed to No. 27 on the country chart and drew Grammy/CMA nods. Yoakam’s version walks into that history with its hat on straight: respectful, unsentimental, unmistakably his.
So what changes when Yoakam sings it? Tone, mostly. Where Owens’s original beams with wry, high-beam cheer—grinning through the pain—Yoakam leans into a drier, Bakersfield lope. The drums sit a breath behind the beat (reassuring, not insistent), the bass nudges the bar line forward, and the Telecasters answer his lines with short, conversational phrases. He doesn’t mug the punch lines or underline the self-pity. He states the case, lets the groove carry the joke, and trusts you to hear the ache inside the smile. On Dwight Sings Buck, that feel is the whole thesis: keep the grammar (twang, snap, space), let time and mileage deepen the vowels.
The arrangement is a small masterclass in how to modernize a standard without sanding off its fingerprints. Yoakam keeps the two-step gait and that friendly, side-door melody, but he lets the band breathe. Guitars flicker, then retreat. Steel peeks around the vocal like sunlight at the edge of a blind. Nothing grandstands; everything serves the story. And because the lyric is built on a clean comic conceit—if heartbreak is what they want, I’ll “act naturally”—the restraint makes it funnier and truer. Older ears recognize the trick: you can either fall apart or you can play the part long enough to get back to yourself.
Placed where it is—early in the set—“Act Naturally” also acts like a handshake between Buck’s radio world and Dwight’s Los Angeles honky-tonk schooling. The sequencing glides from “Only You (Can Break My Heart)” into this cut and on to “Down on the Corner of Love,” sketching a little history lesson by feel alone. The message is gentle but firm: these aren’t museum pieces; they’re working songs, meant for kitchens and garages and long highway afternoons.
Meaning deepens as the years stack up. When you’re young, the title reads like a clever dodge. Later, it sounds like wisdom—the way we carry ourselves through public days when the private news is bad. Yoakam sings that balance without flinching. He doesn’t deny the bruise; he just stands up straight and sets his boots to the beat. It’s the opposite of melodrama, and that’s why it lands: the record behaves like a good friend who can make you laugh without making light of what hurts.
A quick scrapbook, neat and true:
- Artist: Dwight Yoakam
- Song: “Act Naturally” — track 5, ~2:33–2:34, on Dwight Sings Buck (New West, Oct 23, 2007); producer: Dwight Yoakam.
- Origins: Written by Johnny Russell (credit to Voni Morrison); Buck Owens’s 1963 version hit No. 1 country.
- Famous covers: The Beatles (Ringo lead, 1965); Buck Owens & Ringo Starr duet (1989, Billboard Country #27, Grammy/CMA nominations).
Play Yoakam’s cut tonight and notice what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t wallow, and it doesn’t wink too hard. It walks—straight time, easy shoulders, a singer who knows the difference between acting like you’re okay and becoming okay. That’s why this little gem keeps its shine: it treats an old joke like a truth you can live by, three clean minutes at a time.