A quiet struggle between yearning and restraint, where love becomes a thoughtful choice rather than a storm
When “Trying Not to Love You” was released by Johnny Rodriguez in 1978, it arrived as a testament to emotional honesty tempered by experience. Issued as a single from the album Rodriguez Forever, the song climbed its way to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, reaffirming Rodriguez’s remarkable ability to articulate the inner conflicts of the heart. In a decade marked by dramatic narratives of heartbreak and celebration alike, this song stood apart for its subtlety, its introspection, and its calm refusal to rush toward resolution.
By the late 1970s, Johnny Rodriguez had already built a reputation as a country singer with a unique emotional perspective. His voice, colored by warmth and a kind of easy sincerity, allowed him to explore love’s many textures without resorting to melodrama. “Trying Not to Love You” exemplifies that approach. Rather than narrating a story of heartbreak or triumph, the song inhabits a moment of hesitation—a reluctant recognition of attachment that lingers despite the singer’s desire for distance. From its opening bars, it invites listeners into an internal conversation rather than a public declaration.
Musically, the arrangement of “Trying Not to Love You” is elegant in its restraint. Gentle guitars and subtle steel work hover beneath Rodriguez’s voice, giving the song a spacious quality. The tempo flows steadily but without rush, reflecting the song’s emotional tone: thoughtful, reflective, and inherently unresolved. This kind of production was emblematic of Rodriguez’s late-1970s sound—grounded in tradition, attentive to feeling, and free of unnecessary embellishment.
Lyrically, the song depicts a struggle many have known well: the attempt to guard one’s heart against deeper feeling, only to discover that love refuses to be contained. The narrator speaks with quiet honesty about wanting not to fall, about trying to stay aloof, and about the internal tug between self-preservation and surrender. This is not a song of wounded pride or theatrical heartbreak. It is a song of acknowledgment—an admission that what we resist sometimes becomes the very thing that shapes us.
Johnny Rodriguez’s vocal performance here is especially revealing. He does not belt, nor does he dramatize. Instead, he sings with a kind of considered calm, allowing the emotional weight of each line to be heard without forcing it. There is tenderness in his tone, but also a quiet strength—the strength to acknowledge his own vulnerability without collapsing beneath it. That vulnerability becomes the heart of the song’s power.
The story behind “Trying Not to Love You” is emblematic of Rodriguez’s broader artistic identity during this period. While many country songs of the era centered on clear heroes, unmistakable heartbreak, or unambiguous devotion, this song occupies a gray area. It speaks to listeners who know that life’s emotional currents rarely move in straight lines. Love is not always dramatic. Sometimes it arrives softly, against one’s better judgment, and stays not because it overwhelms, but because it persists.
The chart success of the song—reaching No. 3 on the country charts—reflected its resonance with audiences willing to meet it on its own terms. It did not need sensational hooks or dramatic crescendos to find its place. Instead, listeners connected with its quiet truth. The song felt like a companion rather than a spectacle.
Within the album Rodriguez Forever, “Trying Not to Love You” stands as a centerpiece of emotional maturity. The album as a whole balanced traditional country instrumentation with themes of love, loss, and resilience. Yet this track, in particular, gives space to the loneliness of choice—the recognition that love sometimes finds us even when we are trying to protect ourselves from it.
Today, listening to “Trying Not to Love You” feels like entering a private conversation that has been paused in mid-thought. There is no tidy ending, no dramatic turn of fate. Instead, there is honesty. There is struggle. There is reflection. And above all, there is the recognition that love, in its many forms, teaches us not by certainty, but by persistence.
In the larger arc of Johnny Rodriguez’s career, “Trying Not to Love You” remains one of his most quietly profound recordings—an unguarded look at the heart that confirms what many have learned: the deepest feelings often arrive unannounced and refuse to be contained.