50 Years Ago: George Jones is Ahead of His Time Addressing PTSD with “The Door”

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Sometimes when sifting through the volumes of old country songs, you’re left outright stunned by the depth and foresight some of them include. The beauty of country music is often found in its simplicity and plainspoken nature. It’s not trying to save the world. It’s simply trying to speak to everyday feelings and struggles. But some country songs go far beyond that, to touch on much deeper things, or ultimately prove to be ahead of their time.

In 1974, George Jones was enjoying a resurgence of interest in his career. After years of his demons getting in the way of his success, he finally achieved a #1 song in partnership with producer Billy Sherrill with the heartbreaking tune “The Grand Tour” (read more). It was George’s first #1 song in seven years, and reminded country listeners what an incredible singer George Jones was.

Jones followed up the success of “The Grand Tour” with the song “The Door” that was written by Billy Sherrill and songwriter/performer Norro Wilson, who was also one of the co-writers on “The Grand Tour.” “The Door” really is not like any other country song you can find, certainly not in the catalog of George Jones, but especially not in country music in 1974. It touched on things people just didn’t talk about in country music at the time.

“The Door” tells the story of a former soldier suffering from what today would be called PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But that disorder would not even be officially defined for another six years, and was decades away from being a term recognized in common parlance. “Shell shock” was the term some gave when bangs and loud noises like a door slamming could rattle former soldiers. But really, people weren’t talking about the toll on mental health that war took on soldiers at all.

On September 5th, 1974, George Jones recorded “The Door” at Nashville’s Columbia Studios. In the song, the soldier recalls how his experiences of war haunt his memories.

The awful sound of a thousand bombs exploding
And I wondered if I could take it anymore
There were times when they almost drove me crazy
But I did my best and took it like a man

It’s important to point out that George Jones himself enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1951, and served until 1953. Though it doesn’t appear Jones ever saw combat himself, this was during the Korean War and in the aftermath of WW2 when he would have known many who did.

It’s probably a stretch to say that “The Door” was “controversial.” Unlike other risque songs of the era such as Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” or Conway Twitty’s “I Can Tell You’ve Never Been This Far Before,” it wasn’t “banned” by some radio stations. But “The Door” certainly made some country listeners and DJs feel uncomfortable. You weren’t supposed to talk about the ravages of war at that time.

“I don’t think it quite got to the whole entire public because of the type of song that it was,” Jones said later. “It was a number one song, but…a lot of it was about the [Vietnam] war…It was the type of song people didn’t wanna really talk about that much.”

But what allowed the song to still make it to #1 is that just like so many country songs, it was ultimately about heartbreak. This is how songwriters Billy Sherrill and Norro Wilson were able to slip in a deeper discussion. The closing of the door by the narrator’s lover is compared to the sounds of war, but ultimately considered even worse. Billy Sherrill recorded his own office door closing to create the door closing sound effect featured in the song.

But most paramount to the song’s success was the voice of George Jones. Nobody could put as much pain behind a performance, and make you believe it was so sincere and straight from the heart like The Possum. Anyone considering criticizing the song had to concede that George Jones singing it was country music mastery. “The Door” remains one of George’s greatest performances of his career, right up there with “The Grand Tour” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”


Of course these days, society is much more open to speaking about PTSD, especially for our combat Veterans. We understand what the ravages of war can do to good people’s psyche and personal lives. If anything, at times modern country music has turned exploitative of the “support the troops” narrative. It’s become a trope. But when George Jones, Billy Sherrill, and Norro Wilson broached the subject, it was bold and revolutionary.

What’s great about “The Door” is that the story and writing still hold up, even if the Billy Sherrill Countrypolitan string arrangements will feel stuffy and outdated to most modern country fans. “The Door” was dramatically ahead of its time, and has withstood the test of time as one George Jones’s and country music’s greatest compositions.

© 2025 Saving Country Music

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