I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry Released November 8, 1949
Recorded by American country music singer-songwriter Hank Williams in 1949, the song has been covered by a wide range of musicians. During his Aloha from Hawaii TV-special, Elvis Presley introduced it by saying, “I’d like to sing a song that’s… probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard.” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” has become closely identified with Williams’s musical legacy and has been widely praised. In the 2003 documentary The Road to Nashville, singer k.d. lang stated, “I think ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ is one of the most classic American songs ever written, truly. Beautiful song.” In his autobiography, Bob Dylan recalled, “Even at a young age, I identified with him. I didn’t have to experience anything that Hank did to know what he was singing about. I’d never heard a robin weep, but could imagine it and it made me sad.” In its online biography of Williams, Rolling Stone notes, “In tracks like ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’, Williams expressed intense, personal emotions with country’s traditional plainspoken directness, a then-revolutionary approach that has come to define the genre through the works of subsequent artists from George Jones and Willie Nelson to Gram Parsons and Dwight Yoakam.” Rolling Stone ranked it No. 111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the oldest song on the list, and No. 3 on its 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time… all too low!
