Little Texas, ‘What Might Have Been’ – Lyrics Uncovered

Little Texas broke down barriers for today’s country music bands with their rockin' country songs in the early '90s. They also pulled on the heartstrings of their fans with touching ballads, such as their 1993 hit 'What Might Have Been.' The song reflects back on lost love and often wondering where they would be today had they stuck it out.

"I remember writing this song very vividly," former Little Texas keyboardist/background vocalist Brady Seals tells Taste of Country. “It was me, Porter Howell and Dwayne O'Brien of Little Texas. We were sitting in the back of the bus. Back then, we were touring so much that we didn’t have the luxury of getting together in the rooms or whatever in downtown Nashville and doing the 9 to 5 writing. We wrote whenever we got the chance. Dwayne came up with the title, 'What Might Have Been,' and Porter started played the melody on a guitar."

"We were all sitting around talking about our own 'what might have beens,'" Seals continues. "All of those high school stories that each one of us had where we loved someone so much at the time, and we were thinking this is going to be forever."

"Sure I think about you now and then / But it's been a long long time / I've got a good life now I've moved on / So when you cross my mind / I try not to think about / What might have been / 'Cause that was then / And we have taken different roads / We can't go back again / There's no use giving in / And there's no way to know / What might have been," they sing in the first verse and chorus.

"Then, one thing led to another or whatever, [and] we broke up from our high school sweethearts," Seals says. "Then seeing them later and still appreciating them and the love we had back then, but things had changed at that point in our lives. That was essentially what the story was about: being able to reminisce, but not grieving."

"We could sit and talk about this all night long / And wonder why we didn't last / Yes they might be the best days / We will ever know / But we'll have to leave them in the past," they sing in the second verse.

'What Might Have Been' was the sixth single from Little Texas and the lead-off release from their second album, 'Big Time.' The song peaked on Billboard’s country singles chart at No. 2, giving the band another hit, and possibly their best-known song of their career.

"Something else about that song that was so detrimental for its success was the video," says Seals. "We had gotten treatments from several different people around town, but when we got the treatment for the war veteran having to leave home and never really hooking up with Clarice, it was such a wonderful treatment for the video. It turned out even better than we thought it would. It expressed a different angle to that song -- an angle that we needed."

Watch Little Texas Perform 'What Might Have Been' Live