About the Song
“Check Yes or No” is a song written by Danny Wells and Dana Hunt Black, and recorded by American country music singer George Strait. It was released in September 1995 as the lead single from his box set Strait Out of the Box. It peaked at number one on both the U.S. Billboard country chart and the Canadian RPM country chart. It was also included as a bonus track on the UK-released version of the Blue Clear Sky album in 1996.
“Check Yes or No” tells the story of two schoolchildren who develop a crush on one another,[1] passing love notes and flirting on the playground. In the second verse, the song shifts to the present, with the narrator celebrating their longevity after two decades of marriage.
The song was written by Danny Wells and Dana Hunt Black, two Nashville songwriters. It was both of their first songs to be recorded by a major artist. In an interview, Black recalled that she had originally developed the song’s chorus a year before she moved to Music City, but kept it to herself. In a songwriting session with Wells at the ASCAP offices, Black shared the idea, and the two got to work developing the song.[2] An original demo of the song was included on the 2010 compilation The Original Songwriter Demos Volumes 1 & 2.[3] Strait was particularly fond of the song upon his first listen. “That was one of the songs though that I knew, right away when I first heard it, I wanted to cut it,” he remarked to CMT, adding that his toddler son was a big fan.[4][5] Strait recorded the song at Emerald Sound Studios in Nashville on April 10, 1995.[6]