50 Years Ago: George Jones Records Country’s Saddest Song
Over the years, something nearing universal consensus from both country music fans and historians alike has settled upon the idea that “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by George Jones is the greatest country music song in history. Written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam, and released by George Jones in 1980, it revitalized The Possum’s career, and is still cherished and revered today.
“He Stopped Loving Her Today” is certainly a sad song in itself; that’s for sure. But it’s another George Jones song that nears a similar universal consensus as the saddest song in country music history. And perhaps the only reason it’s not considered the greatest song itself is because George Jones would outdo himself years later.
50 years ago today (January 22nd, 1974), George Jones stepped into Columbia Studio B in Nashville and recorded the song “The Grand Tour.” Written by Norro Wilson, Carmol Taylor, and George Richey, you will be hard pressed to find a song in country music or anywhere else that encapsulates and chronicles the deep sense of loss that a brokenhearted man feels as he mopes through a home devoid of love and family.
“The Grand Tour” is considered one of country music’s foremost divorce songs, in a genre known for tackling divorce like no other. As the narrator walks through the house speaking in the past tense, you can feel the pain coming through the voice of George Jones in a way that stokes deep emotion. It isn’t just the lyrics, but George’s performance that matches the lonesome steel guitar and the Billy Sherrill-produced string section that takes “the song”The Grand Tour” from devastatingly sad to a country music masterpiece.
But as some have pointed out over the years, “The Grand Tour” can be interpreted differently by different people. Though the first three verses seem to clearly map out the aftermath of a divorce—or at least the spouse leaving—the fourth verse leaves some thinking that there might be more to the story.
There’s her rings, all her things
And her clothes are in the closet
Like she left them when she tore my world apart
As you leave, you’ll see the nursery
Oh, she left me without mercy
Taking nothing but our baby, and my heart
With the wife leaving all of her rings and clothes behind, and then a nursery and baby being referenced, some believe the song could be about the narrator’s wife dying during child birth. Though this is certainly an interesting interpretation, the sternness of lyrics such as “she tore my world apart” and “she left me without mercy” seem to imply that the wife’s exit from the narrator’s life was voluntary. Normally, a bereaved husband wouldn’t be so bitter against his dearly departed wife.
But like many great songs, the lyricism allows “The Grand Tour” to be interpreted differently to different people, and open to the imagination of the audience to be molded to their personal experiences and world view, making the song feel more intimate to the beholder.
“The Grand Tour” was very significant for the career of George Jones, and for country music. Similar to “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “The Grand Tour” put George Jones back at #1 on the country charts after an extended drought of being locked out of the top spot (22 singles in total). It quickly became one of George’s signature songs that he regularly performed in concert, and it’s cited commonly as one of the greatest examples of the genius behind the Countrypolitan production style of Billy Sherrill.
There are also a couple of interesting tidbits about the song. One of the co-writers was George Richey, who was Tammy Wynette’s husband after she divorced George Jones. Reportedly, Jones didn’t like Richey, and Wynette’s daughters have claimed Ritchey was abusive and manipulative towards Tammy. Richey also worked as her manager for many years. According to some, friction between George Jones and George Richey began well before Tammy Wynette married Richey. But Jones knew a good song when he heard it, and cut “The Grand Tour” anyway.
Though it’s often glossed over in history, Aaron Neville recorded “The Grand Tour” in 1993. Despite being an R&B artist, Neville charted a Top 40 hit in country with the song (#38), and was even nominated for the Grammy’s Best Male Country Vocal Performance for it in 1994.
What’s so great about country music is how it encapsulates universal truths and things that humans feel no matter the time, the place, or the era. Even 50 years later, the sense of loss captured in the George Jones performance of “The Grand Tour” is something unparalleled in popular American music.
January 22, 2024 @ 11:50 am
“The Grand Tour” can be interpreted differently by different people.” have there ever been any interviews with the writers if they had a specific intent or meaning?
January 22, 2024 @ 12:24 pm
Yes. Their specific intent and meaning was to convey the misery of a man who broods alone in a house, after beng abandoned by his wife–who fled the home, with their baby in tow.
January 22, 2024 @ 2:14 pm
This is my favorite George Jones song and I was introduced to it while in college and Aaron Neville’s video was on heavy CMT rotation (unfortunately it was not played on neither the Philly nor the NYC country radio station).
I always assumed she left him, but now that I look at the lyrics in a different light, I could be swayed to an alternative meaning. I suppose that’s the beauty of a great song – you can justifiably take what you want from it.
Admittedly, the story is completely told from the narrator’s/man’s standpoint, but it sounds like a pretty good marriage. She brought him the paper and whispers her love to him. The bedroom seems to bring back warm memories. Maybe he was clueless or dreamed the past up?
Curiously, she leaves her rings behind. Wouldn’t she bring small, easy-to-carry, valuable items that can be readily converted to cash to be used for the baby’s care?
Either way, still a great song.
January 23, 2024 @ 6:54 am
I’ve been there. It is horrible especially after a year in combat.
January 23, 2024 @ 9:36 am
I’m sorry you went through that. Especially after serving our country.
Jim Croce’s Operator is about this subject too. Evidently, he got the idea while in the service and saw servicemen lining up to use the phone on the base to see if the Dear John letter from their wives or girlfriends were real.
“She’s living in LA
With my best, old ex-friend Ray
A guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated”
June 22, 2024 @ 8:12 am
When I first heard The Grand Tour,I could immediately picture George and Tammy in my mind and them having one of their famous quarrels and George being on one of his benders he went on during the late 60s and early 70’s. Good Ole NO Show Jones. Both The Grand Tour AND He Stopped Loving Her Today in my opinion, regardless of who wrote the songs, would never have been the hits they were if George Jones hadn’t sang them because he was singing them to and because of Tammy Wynette. Regardless of being remarried to Nancy, George NEVER got over losing Tammy.She forever held a place in his heart.
July 8, 2024 @ 7:16 pm
Am so sorry thats awful am so sorry especially after all you done and went through in combat I’m sure that was hard…..
January 23, 2024 @ 7:21 am
You know when I first heard “The GrandTour” I actually thought that she had committed suicide after killing their baby…sorry but I did!
January 23, 2024 @ 5:54 pm
That was not my first idea. BUT after so many listening to, I hate to say I did begin to have that same thought. Left rings. Etc.?
January 22, 2024 @ 1:19 pm
I believe the meaning of the song is a man walking through his house after his wife has left and taken the baby with her. The reason I put that alternative interpretation in there is because I have seen it floated in other places, specifically Tyler Mahan Coe.
January 22, 2024 @ 2:19 pm
I wonder if the 4th verse was sung first, more would interpret it as she died? Why didn’t she take her things if she planned to leave? In the first verse …
Just some things that I will tell you
Some things I know will chill you to the bone
Why would a tell about divorce “chill one to the bone?”
Also, there’s no admission of guilt … not a hint. Was he a boozer, a cheater, abusive … usually in county music you get the reason for leaving.
But, I love ambiguity. It was on that podcast by the insufferable Coe that I heard Richey was inspired by the Nashville bus tours of famous country singers. This tell is ambiguous so it could apply to all broken homes either by divorce or chilling tragedy.
Great song … writing, production, and vocal performance.
January 22, 2024 @ 6:35 pm
I think that “Chiseled In Stone” by Vern Gosdin could be considered equally sad, if not more so.
January 22, 2024 @ 2:35 pm
Nothing Tyler Mahan Coe says should be given any credence.
January 22, 2024 @ 10:32 pm
I don’t want to start anything with Tyler Mahan Coe. I appreciate what he tries to do to keep country music history alive. But one of the issues with his takes is that he acts like they’re Gospel, like he knows about certain things and that everyone else is wrong and stupid. The best way to present historical information in dispute is to do what I did here, which is present the most plausible scenario, then present alternatives, and let the audience decide what they believe.
Instead, Coe presents things as fact. And if anyone questions him on it, he calls them fucking stupid. Even worse, he’s seeded an army of toadies that do this same thing.
January 23, 2024 @ 6:27 am
I whole- heartedly agree on the Coe front. I’m a bit of a country music historian in my own way, and I appreciate his obsessive research. But the attitude is too over the top nasty. Nobody, gets the facts right all the time. Memory’s fade with time and even the people who were there forget the details. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with The Adam’s Brothers and in some cases, they tell a different tale about George than Coe does. I tend to believe them over him, as they worked for the man for half the 60s, and again a bit in the 70s. They were there, for example when Jones played them the demo for a morbid weeper called He stopped Loving Her Today. They advised him it would likely be a hit, that would lift him up out of his career slump. More importantly, they convinced him to check in to a facility and detox, prior to recording it. They pretty much saved his life, and gave him sound advice about that song, which history will prove was the right decision.
As for The Grand Tour, I agree it’s a masterpiece. One of the best stone cold country ballads.
January 23, 2024 @ 1:35 pm
: D maybe i should just sashay on over to Tyler Mahan Coe’s site.
But, that would just be downright mean.
Nah, am an SCM groupie …
Might be fun to get a lot of sturdy plastic army men, cardboard mailer tubes, (PVC pipe works better) firecrackers (M 60’s?) hairspray, large apples, cantaloupes, what have you, …
Line up Team SCM, several meters away from Team Coe and let ‘er rip.
(Being born between brothers had/has it’s advantages)
January 23, 2024 @ 9:32 am
Does anybody really give a shit?
January 23, 2024 @ 11:08 am
Yes grumpy Bill, some people do. I’ve met quite a few actually, who care about the history and the folks who knew and played with Jones. More than you might think. Thanks for weighing in!
January 23, 2024 @ 11:54 am
Kevin!
I guess I miss spoke.
January 23, 2024 @ 6:20 pm
Maybe you should start giving a shit i life!
January 22, 2024 @ 12:07 pm
They say it took forever to record the spoken voice because he was too drunk to speak the verse.
January 23, 2024 @ 8:30 pm
You Referencing “he stopped loving her today” I believe
January 22, 2024 @ 1:13 pm
Or did they die?
January 22, 2024 @ 3:23 pm
Bill Burr has a really funny podcast bit about the Grand Tour. He’s right. What the hell did George do to make that women pick up and leave so abruptly with her kid?
January 22, 2024 @ 4:32 pm
The song that refers to the narrator’s wife dying would be “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro. One of the very few songs to be both a Billboard #1 Pop and #1 Country hit.
January 23, 2024 @ 4:59 am
George was first class alcoholic.
January 23, 2024 @ 10:48 am
A first class country singer
January 28, 2024 @ 7:53 pm
In his early years but he finally realized what it was doing to him. He went on to accept Christ in his life.
June 25, 2024 @ 2:06 pm
George Jones was the best …
January 22, 2024 @ 5:04 pm
Murder-suicide
January 23, 2024 @ 2:58 am
“Some things I know will chill you to the bone”
Postpartum depression can manifest and ultimately result in the unthinkable. We all see this in the news from time to time.I think this is solid interpretation of the song.
January 22, 2024 @ 5:45 pm
Chiseled in Stone another contender for saddest.
Honorable mention to She Got the Goldmine (I Got The Shaft).
January 22, 2024 @ 6:17 pm
Hank Williams wrote the saddest.
No one has yet to surpass him.
January 22, 2024 @ 7:02 pm
Also recorded by Tony Jackson from Virginia!
January 28, 2024 @ 5:36 pm
I absolutely loved every song George Jones sang and still do…
January 22, 2024 @ 7:06 pm
When I was a kid, I hated countrypolitan. Soon as those strings came in. I was out. Fact is, a lot of it was genuinely terrible. But, the best of countrypolitan is some of the best of country. The Grand Tour – the album and the song – is just awesome.
January 22, 2024 @ 7:09 pm
When my husband knew he was going to die, he sang that sad song with tears in his eyes
Marguerite G
January 22, 2024 @ 7:17 pm
Part of my aging process is having a greater appreciation for the Nashville Sound and Countrypolitan. I’ll admit that it’s far from traditional country music, but with proper substance and a commitment to the lushness, it creates some of the best, most timeless records in all of music. Songs like The Grand Tour, For the Good Times, Behind Closed Doors, and others are truly spectacular songs, genre classification be damned.
January 22, 2024 @ 9:05 pm
I’ve never thought “He Stopped Loving Her Today” is near being Jones’s best song, let alone the greatest country song of all-time.
Just sticking to sad ballads (and setting aside Jones’s uptempo songs), I’d rate “The Grand Tour,” “A Good Year for the Roses,” “She Thinks I Still Care,” “The Door,” and “When The Grass Grows Over Me” as better than “He Stopped Loving Her Today”–for the songs and for Jones’s performances.
BTW, I thought Guy Clark’s “Let Him Roll,” released by Bobby Bare in 1981 and by Johnny Cash later, took it’s story outline from “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” But Clark’s original version of “Let Him Roll” actually comes from his debut album “Old No. 1,” from, 1975, so it looks like Braddock and Putnam may have borrowed the plot line for “He Stopped Loving Her” from Clark.
Clark’s “Let Him Roll,”–about the old wino who spends his life pining over the “Dallas whore,” who turned down his proposal years back, is, of course far more detailed than “He Stopped Loving Her” in describing its characters, but that’s the nature of a Guy Clark song!
And the description of the mystery woman standing in back, “off to the side” at the old man’s funeral
“We all left and she was standing there
Black veil covering her silver hair
And ‘ol One-Eyed John said her name was Alice
And she used to be a whore in Dallas.”
That chills me more than Jones’s “She came to see him one last time” spoken narrative at the end of “He Stopped Loving Her.”
Could be that the word Guy used to describe the woman’s avocation kept “Let Him Roll” from ever becoming a radio single. Seems it was issued as th B-Side of Bare’s 45-single of “New Cut Road,”another great–and unobjectionable–Clark song.
January 22, 2024 @ 10:17 pm
what’s the point of a song like this except to make people even more depressed? It offers no hope of improving your condition and gives the listener no advice on how to carry on. Just a depressing slog that Im sure made many hillbillies drink and cry or do even worse…..
Vern Gosdin;’s song ” Do You Believe Me Now”. is million times better. It tells the story of a man who thinks his wife is gone and he goes to the bar in misery but his wife comes to the bar and he tells her ” do you believe me now” how important you are and that the dude really needs her. That offers hope and tells a great message rather than George Jones over-singing a depressing and tawdry song like Grand Tour
January 23, 2024 @ 1:11 am
I don’t think country is supposed to be a listener’s therapist. Country is real life.
June 23, 2024 @ 6:48 pm
Unsure about your age, but more than a few of us remember good ol’ tear-jerkers and crying in your beer songs. To describe one of country’s best and most well known songs as tawdry is a disservice to the writers, the performer, the fans, and to the industry in general.
January 23, 2024 @ 1:08 am
A far superior song to He Stopped Loving Her Today.
January 24, 2024 @ 10:27 pm
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way.
January 23, 2024 @ 5:56 am
Me and my best friend used to drink beers and sing along LOL He sure put a lot of emotion into this song.
January 23, 2024 @ 7:36 am
As I’ve gotten older and actually paid attention to lyrics of songs, this one has gotten so much darker to me. It’s an incredible song, but it’s very dark. I think the fact that it’s so open to interpretation by the listener makes it even more so.
January 23, 2024 @ 8:12 am
Aaron Neville also did a fantastic version of this song.
January 23, 2024 @ 9:35 am
Great song.. both George’s and Aaron’s versions are stunning.
January 23, 2024 @ 11:18 am
Best country singer of all time born with a. Gift of voice he will never be beat
January 23, 2024 @ 11:31 am
This is my favorite Jones song. In no way have I ever thought the wife died. I saw people arguing about it in some dumpster fire comments on a Facebook post about the song. Crazy!
January 23, 2024 @ 4:33 pm
I absolutely love those over the top country sad songs, because you can both laugh and cry at the same time, and it comes from real life experience. Skid Row Joe, by Porter Wagoner, gets my vote as the saddest song of all time, country or otherwise. Alcoholism, homelessness, poverty, losing your singing career, wife and children, it’s all there in less than 3 minutes, folks!
January 23, 2024 @ 4:37 pm
So glad to read this, in part because I didn’t know my love for The Grand Tour is as widely shared as it is. Duh, I should have known, how could it not be? I’ve always thought that George singing the line “but now she’s gone forever” may be the greatest moment in country music history.
January 23, 2024 @ 6:05 pm
That was not my first idea. BUT after so many listening to, I hate to say I did begin to have that same thought. Left rings. Etc.?
January 25, 2024 @ 8:02 am
Songwriter George Richey said in an interview that the concept for The Grand Tour began during his drive from Memphis back to Nashville. He envisioned a carnival barker’s invitation to “Step right up and come on in.” That became the first line of the song. In Nashville Richey teamed with songwriters Norro Wilson and Carmol Taylor to complete that classic song specifically intended for George Jones. George recorded it one day after it was written.
It’s a classic country music theme about a man that through his own actions (or negligence) drove away those that he loved the most. But as is often the case with this type of song the listener only hears the narrator’s side of the story. Perhaps he’s looking for sympathy or pity or just wants someone to commiserate with. But you don’t hear the OTHER side of the story from those that were affected or damaged by his actions.
I played this song on the radio when it was a new record. In the hundreds of times I’ve heard it for the past 50 years never once did I envision that the wife or child died. But rather the narrator had done something so despicable or unforgivable (or both) that she needed to leave immediately. She ran out of the house taking only her most important possession, her child. In the heat of that moment nothing else mattered. Perhaps she and her child were physically threatened or mentally abused. So she left with the most precious thing that she had as they may well have been running for their lives..
The Grand Tour is the very epitome of the country music “Sorry S.O.B.” song. Countless other country songs have used this basic premise as a template. But no one could wring out more emotion from a lyric than George Jones. A lesser singer could have made this song trite or even laughable. But with George’s inspired performance and Billy Sherrill’s production it became a classic. George’s subsequent solo single The Door touched on the same theme. Then life imitated art as Tammy Wynette filed for divorce four days after The Door hit #1 during the first week of January 1975.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqQc71GBlXo
January 25, 2024 @ 6:47 pm
You’re totally missing it. George Richey was angling to steal Tammy away from George. He wrote Song from the standpoint of the wife abuser he considered Jonnes to be. The song is dripping with irony. The man is remembering nostalgically a love he destroyed. The wife fled to get away from him not caring what she had to leave behind just to escape. That final growl Come on in…is the voice of the abuser who knows what he did. Jones was so drunk that he just took the song on and played the part he knew Richey had written for him.
January 26, 2024 @ 7:18 am
That might ring true if Richey had written the entire song by himself. However it was a collaboration with two other writers. That said, Tammy first filed for divorce several months before the song was written. The couple reconciled and the divorce did not happen at that time. But a little more than a year later Tammy filed for divorce again and then followed through.
George & Tammy’s long-standing marital problems were well known to most folks in the Nashville music industry. Richey AND his co-writers all knew that. If their goal was to give George a song that he could relate to and connect with emotionally, mission accomplished. To some extent the writers really got inside of George’s head. His amazing performance is a testament to that.
Unfortunately George took no lessons from that song and continued down the road of self-destruction. Alcoholics cannot control themselves and George was severely addicted.
January 26, 2024 @ 1:49 pm
There’s 2 sadder songs by Jones. Check out These days I barely get by (written by Tammy Wynette) and Things Have Gone to Pieces.
January 27, 2024 @ 8:13 am
These Days (I Barely Get By) was a co-write by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. At least that’s the publishing credit. Tammy was not a prolific songwriter so it’s hard to assess her contribution to that one. But I agree that the theme is even sadder and darker than The Grand Tour.
February 24, 2024 @ 6:07 pm
Love the latter song. “There ain’t nothing in my pocket but two nickels and a dime but I’m holding to the pieces of my dream.”
January 27, 2024 @ 9:38 pm
“A Place Out in the Country” hits pretty hard.
January 27, 2024 @ 8:27 am
I’m glad somebody remembered that song. Jones does a masterful job on it. The emotion in his voice is amazing. I think it came out about the same time as The Grand Tour. Mightve been in the same alblum.
January 28, 2024 @ 6:27 am
I’ll have to look that one up and check it out. I’ve never heard that one. Thanks!
May 13, 2024 @ 12:04 pm
We miss you George
July 4, 2024 @ 3:49 pm
I agree totally… I was happy to see “The Grand Tour” was the subject of the article naming the saddest 🙂