#36 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' by Hank Williams (1949)

SONG
*You will have to click on 'Watch on YouTube' - not entirely sure why it makes a difference*

"Haha, well I know of Hank Williams because one of the prisoners in The Shawshank Redemption (one of my favourite films of all time) is a huge fan, but this is the first song of his that I have heard. I like it. It sounds like country and Hawaiian music had a baby! I also like his style of singing. Proper old school country and blues!" - LC

Written by: Hank Williams.
Producer: Uncredited.

Label: MGM.

FACTS

• Hank Williams often put his own life into his songs, whether it be poking fun at his own alcoholism in My Bucket's Got a Hole in it or eerily anticipating his own downfall in I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive, which was released only weeks before his death.
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry was apparently written about his turbulent marriage.
• This song began life as a poem before Williams had a change of heart.
• It was originally the B-side of My Bucket's Got a Hole in it so it wasn't a hit in its day.
• It has since become a reference point for his troubled life, which ended with him dosed up on morphine and alcohol in the backseat of a car on New Year's Day, 1953. 
• Rolling Stone ranked it #111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It's the second oldest song on the list, and one of only two from the 1940s.
  
• Cover versions of the song include those by artists such as Johnny Cash with Nick Cave, Ray Charles, Dean Martin, Al Green, Bob Dylan, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Me First & the Gimme Gimmes.

Recommended songs by this artist...

Lost Highway (1949)