Given the vastness of the musical universe, the infinity of musical notes populating the sheet music sky, it’s not surprising that improbable occurrences … occur. Maybe nothing as crazy as a monkey writing Hamlet, but still, not the run of the mill. (Given the vastness of an infinite number of monkeys, there must be one who gets it 99% right but trips up on only a single word — whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and Oreos of outrageous fortune.)

LeAnn Rimes was destined to sing (that’s not the unusual part). Growing up in Texas, she enrolled in vocal and dance classes as soon as she could walk and talk; she almost made the cast of Annie on Broadway; she spent a week as a Star Search champion; she regularly sang the national anthem at Dallas Cowboys games. All of this before she reached double digits in age. Going into accounting or marine biology simply wasn’t in her future.

When Rimes did reach double digits, she recorded her first two albums on an independent label her dad started. The second of those came with the backing of Dallas DJ, songwriter, and record promoter Bill Mack. His late night radio show was heard all over the country for decades, but he’d also been writing songs since the 1950’s, even managing to get a few recorded by the likes of George Jones, Dean Martin, and George Strait. Way back in early 1958, he wrote a little song called “Blue,” which he recorded himself and quickly released as a single that summer. It didn’t go anywhere, but he kept trying, giving the song to three other singers over the decades before giving it to LeAnn — whose dad threw the demo in the trash.

Luckily, she rescued it, liked it, and added a little yodeling to her version. Smart kid.

“Blue” appeared on her second homegrown album, made at the age of 11, and now she finally got the attention of the bigwigs in country music as Curb Records signed her up to produce her official major-label debut. By now she was 13 and the label decided she should re-record “Blue” (the plan being to make it the B-side of her first single). As with many plans throughout the course of musical history, though, as soon as the radio DJ’s heard the track they went nuts for the novelty and “Blue” — which sounded nothing like contemporary country, it being a 40-year-old song — quickly flipped and became the A-side.

Released as a single in the spring of 1996, “Blue” painted itself across the charts, becoming the rare country smash to also make a big splash on the mainstream pop chart. All with an obscure song from the 1950’s who no one else was able to turn into a hit. And although Rimes did re-record the track, the record company released the wrong (original) version as the single and that’s 11-year-old LeAnn singing about her heart breaking at 3 o’clock in the morning.

All those improbabilities, stacked like an Oreo — maybe that monkey got it right, after all.

So why can’t you be blue …. over LeAnn Rimes?