“Another Try” is a country prayer for a rewind button—Josh Turner admitting that the cruelest mistakes aren’t dramatic sins, but the quiet chances we let slip away.
Right away, it helps to place the song in time, because its impact comes from when Josh Turner chose to sing something this vulnerable. “Another Try” (featuring harmony vocals from Trisha Yearwood) was released as a single on January 7, 2008, the second single from Turner’s 2007 album Everything Is Fine. It was written by Chris Stapleton and Jeremy Spillman, and produced by Frank Rogers—a set of names that quietly explains why the song feels both traditional and modern: classic country remorse, shaped with contemporary radio clarity.
Because it was a radio single, we can speak precisely about its chart entrance. On Billboard Hot Country Songs, “Another Try” debuted at No. 57 on the chart dated January 12, 2008, and it later peaked at No. 15. (On Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, it reached a peak of No. 22, as shown on the chart listing around mid-March 2008. )
Now—what makes it linger long after the numbers fade?
“Another Try” doesn’t dress heartbreak up in clever metaphors. It simply stands in the doorway of regret and tells the truth: the narrator lost someone not because love wasn’t there, but because he didn’t tend it. The song’s emotional engine is made of small failures—feelings that were “never shared,” a goodbye that happened “without a fight,” a pride that stayed too stiff to bend when it mattered. And that’s why the song hurts in such a familiar way: it isn’t about a villain. It’s about time—how it keeps moving forward even when you finally understand what you should have done.
Turner’s voice is essential to the illusion. His baritone has always sounded like it was built for confession—slow, weighted syllables that make a simple line feel like an admission signed in ink. In “Another Try,” he sings as if he’s speaking to one person in a quiet room, not trying to win a crowd—just trying to be forgiven by memory. And then Trisha Yearwood enters, not as a “duet partner” in the usual back-and-forth sense, but as a presence—harmonies that feel like the echo of the love he’s already lost, or the conscience that won’t stop answering him. The official credits emphasize that she provides harmony vocals, and the effect is exactly that: she doesn’t argue the story; she deepens it.
The song’s “behind the scenes” visuals underline its central wish: reverse what happened. The music video (released in April 2008) was directed by Stephen Scott and uses a clever, emotional device—scenes filmed to appear as if time is moving backward, mirroring the narrator’s desire to undo the moment he let love slip away. It was filmed in Franklin, Tennessee, and notably Yearwood does not appear in the video, which makes the loneliness feel even more complete: this is Turner alone with his remorse, performing the same conversation in his head again and again.
And perhaps the most telling recognition of what the song is came from the industry that knows how hard it is to make regret sound fresh: “Another Try” received an Academy of Country Music nomination for Vocal Event of the Year. That nomination fits, because the performance isn’t flashy—just exact. Two voices, one wound, and the unanswerable question that haunts so many love stories: If I knew then what I know now, would I still have you?
In the end, “Another Try” feels like a late-night thought you don’t say out loud until you’ve lived long enough to understand its weight: some doors close not with a slam, but with a soft click—because we didn’t reach for the handle in time. And the song’s quiet mercy is this: it lets you feel that truth without shame, only with the human ache of wishing—just once—for another try.
