I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry is a 1949 country song by Hank Williams .
Emergence
Williams recorded the song on August 30, 1949 in a studio in Ohio under the production of Fred Rose . Williams called it a personal favorite among his own songs, but did not believe that the piece would be a commercial success because he believed that his listeners were used to other songs from him. It appeared as the B-side of the hit My Bucket's Got a Hole in It . It wasn't until Williams' death in 1953 at the age of 29 that the track became one of his best-known songs over the years.
In 2005 the piece reached 111th place in the list of the 500 best songs of all time , and 29th place in CMT ’s 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music .
content
The song describes the image of a lonely man in the night. The protagonist records several typical nocturnal noises and connects them all with his own sense of loneliness. He assumes that if he was alone and lonely, others would be too.
He hears a nightjar ( Whippoorwill ) and says it sounds too sad to fly. The night train also howls loudly. Further signs are the moon, which hides behind the clouds in order to weep undisturbed, the time that only progresses slowly, a robin that is sad because the leaves of the trees wither and it therefore loses the will to live.
Only in the fourth verse is the reason for the protagonist's loneliness mentioned. After commenting on a falling star that lights up the night sky, the singer wonders where the long-awaited person is and that he feels like crying because of that.
Cover versions
The song has been covered many times, including by Johnny Cash together with Nick Cave and by Ray Charles , Freddy Fender , Dean Martin and BJ Thomas , whose version reached number 8 on the Billboard pop charts in 1966. Elvis Presley sang a version of the piece in his 1973 television special, Aloha from Hawaii, and announced it with the words: “ ... probably the saddest song I've ever heard. "
In the country charts , the title was placed twice: In 1972, Charlie McCoy's version reached number 23 and in 1976 Terry Bradshaw's version reached number 17.
More recently, cover versions have appeared for example by Stephan Eicher in 1991 , by Jimmie Dale Gilmore in 1993 , by Keb 'Mo' in 2001 on the Hank Williams tribute album Timeless and in 2006 by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes . The Danish metal band Volbeat covered the song in 2008 for their album Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood as did Wynonna Judd in 2009. Yo La Tengo covered the song on the album Stuff Like That There in 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595956/im_so_lonesome_i_could_cry
- ↑ US catalog number: Scepter 12129; Whitburn, Joel: Top Pop Singles 1955-1993 . Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Ltd., 1994, p. 598
- ↑ US catalog number: Monument 8546; Whitburn, Joel: The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits. 1944-2006 . 2nd Edition. New York, NY: Billboard Books, 2006, p. 222
- ↑ US catalog number: Mercury 73760; Whitburn, Joel: The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits. 1944-2006 . 2nd Edition. New York, NY: Billboard Books, 2006, p. 52