"It's All in Your Head" is a song recorded by American country music group Diamond Rio. It was released in August 1996 as the third single from their album IV. It peaked at number 15 in the United States, and number 17 in Canada. The song was written by Van Stephenson, who was then a member of the country music band BlackHawk, Tony Martin and Reese Wilson.
Content
The song describes a young male who has grown up suffering from the death of his parents. The boy's father was a preacher who anticipated an eventual apocalypse, and he died while having the spirit to take up a snake, and he was killed by it. The boy's father's last words to the boy were; "We never walked on the moon, Elvis ain't dead, you ain't going crazy, it's all in your head."
Critical reception
Deborah Evans Price, of Billboard magazine reviewed the song favorably, calling the song "unique, with an infectious, swampy beat and intriguing lyric about a 'sidewalk soapbox preacher' on an unusual path to salvation". She goes on to say that lead vocalist Marty Roe "tackles the lyric with a funky energy".[1]
Music video
The music video was directed by directing duo Deaton-Flanigen Productions. It describes most of the content, and shows the boy (revealed to be known as Gordon Wallace Poole) grown up being in a mental hospital. Martin Sheen plays the father (and the doctor in the mental hospital), and Sheen's son Ramon Estevez plays Gordon as an adult.
