Written by Mac Davis and Billy Strange and published by Gladys Music, Inc., it was released as a 7" single in 1969 with "The Fair Is Moving On" on the B-side, but not featured on any studio album.[1][2] The single was also released in the UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and India.
It reached #35 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #21 on the UK Singles Chart.[3] The single reached #18 on the Record World chart and #29 on the Australian Go-Set chart. The RIAA certified the single Gold in March 1992.
Although The Trouble with Girls is set in the 1920s, several lyrics within this song are anachronistic for the era, such as a reference to "armchair quarterbacks", a term not coined until the advent of television sports broadcasting decades later. The film version of the song does not include the female backing vocals of the single.
The song has been recorded by Nat Stuckey, O.C. Smith, Tom Green, Jennifer Scott, Sue Moreno, Darrel Higham and The Enforcers, and Lee Birchfield in 2012.[10]