Such amazing depth and he was only 25 when he wrote that.
Thanks for Patsy Cline. That woman had a truly amazing voice.
Actually, the “Only The Lonely” version you posted was (re-)corded in the mid-1980s, when Roy Orbison was soaring again (at long last). The original versions were tied up in court(s), and Roy and his manager (wife Barbara Orbison) were anxious to capitalize on his new-old popularity.
“Only The Lonely” was written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson*. Joe was a wannabee singer himself, a good looking chap with a good voice, but unfortunately for him, those are a dime-a-dozen in the music industry. On the original big hit studio recording, from the summer of 1960, that’s Joe doing the dum-dum-dum-dee-doo-wahs, while Roy does the vocals.
The re-recording is a close copy, but for true-blue fans of The Big O, there’s *nothing* like the originals. Here’s Roy’s original “Only The Lonely”:
* as were other early Orbison hits, like “Blue Angel”, “Running Scared”, and “Crying”.
That’s it for me. I’m leaving home to stay down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel.
Ya make me so lonely.
Ya make me so lonely.
Ya make me so lonely baby I could die….
American Gospel music includes some lonely blue songs– one of them is “Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley”: here it is, sung by a Roman Catholic choir in Ajax, Ontario.
This folk song doesn’t sugar-coat the feeling of spiritual loneliness that so many people are undergoing at present; it doesn’t have any kind of positive ending, Biblical or otherwise– but it’s fitting for the Saturday pause between Good Friday and Easter.
Frank Sinatra’s “Only the Lonely” – “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry” – “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” – “I Get Along Without You Very Well” – “When Your Lover Has Gone”
In moderation, melancholy is good for the soul.
That Mood Indigo is quite wild. I think she was trying to break some molds there and succeeded. It’s sort of a Boogie Woogie piece, but it’s got jazz improv passages. And it is so up tempo and up beat really. For a blues song?
I love Bonnie Raitt.
Take a trip down Broken Hearted Road, where the quest for love is lonesome …
This is a great selection Neo, your wide-ranging taste in high-quality music is to be admired. But I must say if one sets out to make a list of lonely blue songs this one has to be near the very top of the list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nke_kEh68SE
Nina Simone, oh, that voice–and pretty fantastic piano, too.
Thanks Neo and don frese for the Mood Indigo songs. Not having listened to the two versions back-to-back I didn’t notice any commonality between them at all. The tempos are radically different for starters.
The Duke Ellington song was originally called “Dreamy Blues” and was re-titled when it became popular.
A movie named Mood Indigo was made in 2013 which is a bit of an homage to Duke Ellington. They use several of his songs, and he is mentioned in the script, but they don’t use the title song in the soundtrack.
If anyone is interested, there is a Rick Beato video called The Greatest Solo of All Time featuring the Oscar Peterson trio and the solo is something of a medley of classic blues styles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj93v9j2A4A
Griffin:
My road to Hank Williams was via the Cowboy Junkies and their hyper-slow-and-mournful version of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
I confess I found Hank’s original a bit thin after cutting my teeth on the Junkies’ cover.
They also did a great “Sweet Jane,” which — to speak of wonders — even Lou Reed had to compliment.
huxley,
Well, Hank’s version was recorded in 1949 and almost all the hillbilly/country recordings from that era sound thin or sparse or whatever one wants to call it.
Most of these songs were recorded in one take and probably took like twenty minutes to record the version we have all heard which makes them even more amazing when you think about how multiple takes and multi track recording became the standard in the mid 1960s.
I was going to suggest “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” but I see that Griffin and huxley beat me to it. Mr Whatsit tells me that Elvis Presley called it the saddest song ever written.
And as for Elvis, shouldn’t this be near the top of the list?
“Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?”
Neo thanks for the introduction to Vern Gosdin. I had never heard that song. Unfortunately very relevant to me.
I certainly agree with those touting Hank Williams’ I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Got to be one of the saddest songs ever. I didn’t see anybody mention Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXSl-cuv_iE.
Most of these songs were recorded in one take and probably took like twenty minutes to record the version we have all heard which makes them even more amazing when you think about how multiple takes and multi track recording became the standard in the mid 1960s.
Griffin:
Actually, the Cowboy Junkies’ “The Trinity Session” album (all but one song) was recorded in a church with one mic and in one session. Back to basics.
According to the album sleeve notes: “the recording was not mixed, overdubbed or edited in any way.”
A very spare, pure sound. Which I found quite attrractive, because, for my taste, even in 1988, music had gotten way too overproduced and mucked about.
So I don’t mean the “thin” you seem to be talking about. The Junkies work slow, quiet and intimate. I can really sink into their music in a way I doubt I would with Hank Williams, even if he had had 1980s tech behind him.
Maybe give their version of “Lonesome” a try.
Don’t forget “Lonely Teardrops” by the great Jackie Wilson.
Good set of songs, plus lots of interesting comments & suggestions.
This list of 20 songs includes some here, like my mother’s fav Roy Orbison, plus a few others.
The dancing on upbeat Lonely Boy reminds me of … me. I love dancing, and could easily have been dancing quite like that guy. Plus he has that Peter Norton kinda once rolled up sleeves, which I like.
Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was a huge fav of my kids when they were early teens, and watching Naruto anime – a few different Naruto videos use this song. (This link has the less-known to me official vid)
Didn’t know “Wilco” before, but his How to Fight Loneliness is cool.
Knew about Weezer, but recall Neo noting she’s not so up on modern music, so I can recommend trying all of these songs. This one’s off their 9th album.
My first HS girlfriend loved Neil Diamond, and Solitary Man had already been one of the ones I would sing.
Was wondering if any others would think of the Doors “People Are Strange” – another song I’d sing in fog around LA a few decades ago.
TOC:
‘Only The Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)’ By Roy Orbison
‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ by Bob Dylan
‘So Lonely’ by The Police
‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie
‘Lonely Boy’ by The Black Keys
‘Lonely’ by Tom Waits
‘Eleanor Rigby’ by The Beatles
‘Pictures of You’ by The Cure
‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ by Hank Williams
‘Tired Of Being Alone’ by Al Green
‘Lonely Avenue’ by Ray Charles
‘The Loner’ by Neil Young
‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ by Elvis Presley
‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day
‘How to Fight Loneliness’ by Wilco
‘Cactus’ by The Pixies
‘I Wish You Lonely’ by Morrissey
‘Lonely Girl’ by Weezer
‘Lonely People’ by America
‘Solitary Man’ by Neil Diamond
Green Day wrote a song called “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”? Sacrilege!
The original “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was written in 1933. It’s a classic which has been covered by a ton of people.
You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow
When you behold your shattered dreams
And gigolo and gigelette
Awake to find there eyes are wet
With tears that tell their broken dreams
Here is where you’ll always find me
Always walking up and down
But I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town
‘Chiseled In Stone’ is one of the best sad songs ever.
‘You don’t know about lonely til it’s chiseled in stone’
There is a reason they called Vern Gosdin ‘The Voice’.
My personal favorite, featuring Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQPbE0KnGQ
Another great lonely song. Maybe the greatest.
‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’
Hank Williams (1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXYjm74WFI
Such amazing depth and he was only 25 when he wrote that.
Thanks for Patsy Cline. That woman had a truly amazing voice.
Actually, the “Only The Lonely” version you posted was (re-)corded in the mid-1980s, when Roy Orbison was soaring again (at long last). The original versions were tied up in court(s), and Roy and his manager (wife Barbara Orbison) were anxious to capitalize on his new-old popularity.
“Only The Lonely” was written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson*. Joe was a wannabee singer himself, a good looking chap with a good voice, but unfortunately for him, those are a dime-a-dozen in the music industry. On the original big hit studio recording, from the summer of 1960, that’s Joe doing the dum-dum-dum-dee-doo-wahs, while Roy does the vocals.
The re-recording is a close copy, but for true-blue fans of The Big O, there’s *nothing* like the originals. Here’s Roy’s original “Only The Lonely”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGTipzpBqc4
—
* as were other early Orbison hits, like “Blue Angel”, “Running Scared”, and “Crying”.
That’s it for me. I’m leaving home to stay down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel.
Ya make me so lonely.
Ya make me so lonely.
Ya make me so lonely baby I could die….
American Gospel music includes some lonely blue songs– one of them is “Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley”: here it is, sung by a Roman Catholic choir in Ajax, Ontario.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbv-kYjak08&ab_channel=Sunday7pmChoir%7CCatholic%26ChristianChoralMusic
This folk song doesn’t sugar-coat the feeling of spiritual loneliness that so many people are undergoing at present; it doesn’t have any kind of positive ending, Biblical or otherwise– but it’s fitting for the Saturday pause between Good Friday and Easter.
One of my favorites: Bonnie Raitt, I Ain’t Blue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsELUACBg8s&ab_channel=BonnieRaitt-Topic
Most I know, the ones I don’t I’ll give a listen to, thank goodness for streaming services.
IMHO, no list of lonely songs is complete without…
Lenny Welch’s heart wrenching, “Since I Fell for You”
Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”
Gilbert Sullivan’s poignant “Alone Again, Naturally”
Roy Orbison’s “Crying”
Linda Ronstadt’s ” Faithless Love”
Bread’s “Everything I Own”
Roy Clark’s “Yesterday When I Was Young”
Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”
Frank Sinatra’s “Only the Lonely” – “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry” – “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” – “I Get Along Without You Very Well” – “When Your Lover Has Gone”
In moderation, melancholy is good for the soul.
That Mood Indigo is quite wild. I think she was trying to break some molds there and succeeded. It’s sort of a Boogie Woogie piece, but it’s got jazz improv passages. And it is so up tempo and up beat really. For a blues song?
I love Bonnie Raitt.
Take a trip down Broken Hearted Road, where the quest for love is lonesome …
This is the dry studio version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pliz-TFECXs
This version is the extended, reverbed and distorted live performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti24Z4MMbZs
I know you are not a jazz fan, but this is the all-time best Mood Indigo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZyVBVFnrm4
Billy Strayhorn wrote two of the most melancholy songs ever (and also wrote much of the new material in the extended version of Mood Indigo above)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXXSmmZI3DU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9_g-CR30L4
This is a great selection Neo, your wide-ranging taste in high-quality music is to be admired. But I must say if one sets out to make a list of lonely blue songs this one has to be near the very top of the list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nke_kEh68SE
I’ll have to listen to Lenny Welch.
Here’s Bonnie Raitt singing that great song, Since I Fell for You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aD-0foT-7s&ab_channel=BonnieRaitt-Topic
Nina Simone, oh, that voice–and pretty fantastic piano, too.
Thanks Neo and don frese for the Mood Indigo songs. Not having listened to the two versions back-to-back I didn’t notice any commonality between them at all. The tempos are radically different for starters.
This was interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_Indigo
The Duke Ellington song was originally called “Dreamy Blues” and was re-titled when it became popular.
A movie named Mood Indigo was made in 2013 which is a bit of an homage to Duke Ellington. They use several of his songs, and he is mentioned in the script, but they don’t use the title song in the soundtrack.
If anyone is interested, there is a Rick Beato video called The Greatest Solo of All Time featuring the Oscar Peterson trio and the solo is something of a medley of classic blues styles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj93v9j2A4A
Griffin:
My road to Hank Williams was via the Cowboy Junkies and their hyper-slow-and-mournful version of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
–Cowboy Junkies, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJt9KFyJnbk
I confess I found Hank’s original a bit thin after cutting my teeth on the Junkies’ cover.
They also did a great “Sweet Jane,” which — to speak of wonders — even Lou Reed had to compliment.
huxley,
Well, Hank’s version was recorded in 1949 and almost all the hillbilly/country recordings from that era sound thin or sparse or whatever one wants to call it.
Most of these songs were recorded in one take and probably took like twenty minutes to record the version we have all heard which makes them even more amazing when you think about how multiple takes and multi track recording became the standard in the mid 1960s.
I was going to suggest “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” but I see that Griffin and huxley beat me to it. Mr Whatsit tells me that Elvis Presley called it the saddest song ever written.
And as for Elvis, shouldn’t this be near the top of the list?
“Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?”
Mrs Whatsit,
Elvis Live In Hawaii (1973)
‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itdSGRnjdFI
Neo thanks for the introduction to Vern Gosdin. I had never heard that song. Unfortunately very relevant to me.
I certainly agree with those touting Hank Williams’ I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Got to be one of the saddest songs ever. I didn’t see anybody mention Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXSl-cuv_iE.
Most of these songs were recorded in one take and probably took like twenty minutes to record the version we have all heard which makes them even more amazing when you think about how multiple takes and multi track recording became the standard in the mid 1960s.
Griffin:
Actually, the Cowboy Junkies’ “The Trinity Session” album (all but one song) was recorded in a church with one mic and in one session. Back to basics.
According to the album sleeve notes: “the recording was not mixed, overdubbed or edited in any way.”
A very spare, pure sound. Which I found quite attrractive, because, for my taste, even in 1988, music had gotten way too overproduced and mucked about.
So I don’t mean the “thin” you seem to be talking about. The Junkies work slow, quiet and intimate. I can really sink into their music in a way I doubt I would with Hank Williams, even if he had had 1980s tech behind him.
Maybe give their version of “Lonesome” a try.
Don’t forget “Lonely Teardrops” by the great Jackie Wilson.
Good set of songs, plus lots of interesting comments & suggestions.
This list of 20 songs includes some here, like my mother’s fav Roy Orbison, plus a few others.
The dancing on upbeat Lonely Boy reminds me of … me. I love dancing, and could easily have been dancing quite like that guy. Plus he has that Peter Norton kinda once rolled up sleeves, which I like.
Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was a huge fav of my kids when they were early teens, and watching Naruto anime – a few different Naruto videos use this song. (This link has the less-known to me official vid)
Didn’t know “Wilco” before, but his How to Fight Loneliness is cool.
Knew about Weezer, but recall Neo noting she’s not so up on modern music, so I can recommend trying all of these songs. This one’s off their 9th album.
My first HS girlfriend loved Neil Diamond, and Solitary Man had already been one of the ones I would sing.
Was wondering if any others would think of the Doors “People Are Strange” – another song I’d sing in fog around LA a few decades ago.
TOC:
‘Only The Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)’ By Roy Orbison
‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ by Bob Dylan
‘So Lonely’ by The Police
‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie
‘Lonely Boy’ by The Black Keys
‘Lonely’ by Tom Waits
‘Eleanor Rigby’ by The Beatles
‘Pictures of You’ by The Cure
‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ by Hank Williams
‘Tired Of Being Alone’ by Al Green
‘Lonely Avenue’ by Ray Charles
‘The Loner’ by Neil Young
‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ by Elvis Presley
‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day
‘How to Fight Loneliness’ by Wilco
‘Cactus’ by The Pixies
‘I Wish You Lonely’ by Morrissey
‘Lonely Girl’ by Weezer
‘Lonely People’ by America
‘Solitary Man’ by Neil Diamond
Green Day wrote a song called “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”? Sacrilege!
The original “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was written in 1933. It’s a classic which has been covered by a ton of people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard_of_Broken_Dreams_(Al_Dubin_song)
____________________________
I walk along the street of sorrow
The boulevard of broken dreams
Where gigolo and gigelette can take a kiss without regret
So they forget their broken dreams
You laugh tonight and cry tomorrow
When you behold your shattered dreams
And gigolo and gigelette
Awake to find there eyes are wet
With tears that tell their broken dreams
Here is where you’ll always find me
Always walking up and down
But I left my soul behind me
In an old cathedral town
–Nat King Cole, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (Al Dubin, Harry Warren)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vh7Qreygpk
____________________________
Nat King Cole was such a classy singer. Heavy smoker. Died of lung cancer in 1965.
Neil Sedaka’s “Solitaire” doesn’t get enough respect. Much better than the Karen Carpenter cover.
And while we’re on Nina Simone, “Ne me quitte pas.”