Love at the Five and Dime

"Love at the Five and Dime" is a song written and originally recorded by Nanci Griffith and later recorded and released by American country music artist Kathy Mattea. It was released in April 1986 as the first single from Mattea's album Walk the Way the Wind Blows. The song was Mattea's breakthrough hit, becoming her first top 10 hit and eventually peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.^[1]

The song was featured on Nanci Griffith's album The Last of the True Believers, also released in 1986. The song inspired the album's cover art, which featured a Woolworths store front.^[2] In a live version included on One Fair Summer Evening — recorded August 19 and 20 1988 at Anderson Fair, Houston, Texas — Griffith explains over an extended introduction that the recurring 'ting' sound heard in the music is meant to be a representation of the sound of an elevator in a Woolworth's store. Griffith later re-recorded the song as a duet with Darius Rucker for her 1999 album The Dust Bowl Symphony.