Chely Wright - It Was

What this video is

Released in 1999 at the apex of Chely Wright's commercial career, 'It Was' arrived as the follow-up single to her chart-topping 'Single White Female' on MCA Nashville — a label and era defined by polished production values and aggressive CMT video promotion. The late-90s country video landscape was dominated by narrative-inflected performance clips designed for the 4:3 television format, with Deaton-Flanigen…

Why it matters

A representative artifact of late-90s MCA Nashville commercial country video production, 'It Was' encapsulates the era's aesthetic contract: emotionally legible storytelling, warm production values, and fast-edited performance intercutting calibrated for CMT rotation. Directed by Deaton-Flanigen…

The director

Deaton-Flanigen Productions is a Nashville, Tennessee-based film production company co-founded in 1985 by Robert Deaton III and George Flanigen IV. The duo directed an estimated 500 music videos, primarily in country music, for artists including Martina…