Reba McEntire Joins Viral Netflix Documentary Social Media Trend by Referencing Her 1991 Murder Ballad Cover
Reba McEntire Joins Viral Netflix Documentary Social Media Trend by Referencing Her 1991 Murder Ballad Cover
Raven BrunnerWed, July 29, 2026 at 10:49 PM UTC
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Reba McEntire. -
Reba McEntire referenced her 1991 cover of the murder ballad “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” while participating in a viral social media trend
“Me preparing for my Netflix documentary about a backwoods Southern lawyer,” she wrote over the clip video which sees her taking a seat in a tan chair
Reba covered the dark song on her 1991 album, For My Broken Heart
Reba McEntire is hopping on a social media trend.
The 71-year-old country star referenced her 1991 cover of the murder ballad “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” in an Instagram video shared on Wednesday, July 29.
The video is part of a viral trend in which people dramatically take a seat in front of a camera while pretending to film a Netflix documentary.
“Me preparing for my Netflix documentary about a backwoods Southern lawyer,” Reba wrote on her video which sees her taking a seat in a tan chair.
Reba McEntire at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in 2026.Credit: Alberto Rodriguez/CBS via Getty
Dressed in a stylish leather jacket with black pants and tall boots, she settles into the chair while two women apply makeup to her face and adjust her hair. “I might say something important, you won’t want to miss it,” the singer tells the others after pointing out that she is wearing a microphone.
“Just wait til y’all hear about the night the lights went out in Georgia,” she cheekily captioned the post.
The song was written in 1972 by Bobby Russell and recorded by his then-wife Vicki Lawrence. It was included on Lawrence’s 1973 album and reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The hit tells the fictional story of a man who is executed after being wrongfully convicted of murder in a corrupt small town.
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The caption references the song’s lyrics, which include the lines, “That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia / That’s the night that they hung an innocent man / Well, don’t trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer / ’Cause the judge in the town’s got bloodstains on his hands.”
The dark ballad got a second life when McEntire covered it for her 1991 album, For My Broken Heart. Her version spent 20 weeks on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, peaking at #12.
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The country singer opened up about the cover for Vevo Footnotes in 2025, sharing that she got to “sing the song with Vicki on her talk show in the early 90s.”
“My version of the song only went to No. 12 on the charts, but it’s become one of my fans’ most favorite songs of my career,” McEntire added.
The country legend also recalled the special duet with Lawrence in an Instagram post in September 2025.
“Vicki Lawrence first recorded ‘The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia’ in 1972, and it was a #1 hit!,” she wrote. “We recorded the song nearly 20 years later and I had the pleasure of singing it with Vicki on her talk show in 1992. Talk about full circle!”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
