"Tar Top" is a song written by Randy Owen, and recorded by American country music group Alabama. It was released in August 1987 as the first single from their album Just Us. The song reached number 7 on the BillboardHot Country Singles chart in October 1987, making it their first commercial single not to reach number 1 since 1980's "My Home's in Alabama".[1]
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The song references musical groups that Owen and his bandmates played in prior to the foundation of Alabama, and its title is a reference to a nickname that Owen had in the pre-Alabama days. Owen said that he wrote it a few years prior to the album's release, at a point when he "was making some personal assessments on what [he] could do and what [he] couldn`t do physically and mentally".[2]