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"Cold, Cold Heart" is a country music and pop song written and first recorded by Hank Williams. This blues ballad is both a classic of honky-tonk and an entry in the Great American Songbook.

Hank Williams version

Williams adapted the melody for the song from T. Texas Tyler's 1945 recording of "You'll Still Be in My Heart," written by Ted West in 1943.

In the Williams episode of American Masters, country music historian Colin Escott states that Williams was moved to write the song after visiting his wife Audrey in the hospital, who was suffering from an infection brought on by an abortion she had carried out at their home unbeknownst to Hank. Escott also speculates that Audrey, who carried on extramarital affairs as Hank did while he was on the road, may have suspected the baby was not her husband's. Florida bandleader Pappy Neil McCormick claims to have witnessed the encounter:

According to McCormick, Hank went to the hospital and bent down to kiss Audrey, but she wouldn't let him. 'You sorry son of a bitch,' she is supposed to have said, 'it was you that caused me to suffer like this.' Hank went home and told the children's governess, Miss Ragland, that Audrey had a 'cold, cold heart,' and then, as so often in the past, realized the bitterness in his heart held commercial promise.

The first draft of the song is dated November 23, 1950, and was recorded on December 21, 1950, at Castle Studio in Nashville. Williams was backed on the session by members of his Drifting Cowboys band, including Jerry Rivers (fiddle), Don Helms (steel guitar), Chet Atkins (electric guitar), Sammy Pruett (rhythm guitar), Ernie Newton or "Cedric Rainwater", aka Howard Watts (bass), and either Owen Bradley or producer Fred Rose on piano.

Like his earlier masterpiece "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," it was released as the B-side (MGM-10904B) to "Dear John" (MGM-10904A), since it was an unwritten rule in the country music industry that the faster numbers sold best. "Dear John" peaked at #8 after only a brief four-week run on Billboard magazine's country music charts, but "Cold, Cold Heart" proved to be a favorite of disc jockeys and jukebox listeners, whose enthusiasm for the song catapulted it to #1 on the country music charts.

Williams featured the song on his Mother's Best radio shows at the time of its release and performed the song on The Kate Smith Evening Hour on April 23, 1952, which ran from September 1951 to June 1952; the appearance remains one of the few existing film clips of the singer performing live. He is introduced by his idol Roy Acuff. Although a notorious binge drinker, Williams appears remarkably at ease on front of the cameras, with one critic noting, "He stared at the camera during his performance of 'Cold, Cold Heart' with a cockiness and self-confidence that bordered on arrogance."

The song would become a pop hit for Tony Bennett, paving the way for country songs to make inroads into the lucrative pop market. In the liner notes to the 1990 Polygram compilation Hank Williams: The Original Single Collection, Fred Rose's son Wesley states, "Hank earned two major distinctions as a songwriter: he was the first writer on a regular basis to make country music national music; and he was the first country songwriter accepted by pop artists, and pop A&R men."

Controversy

Music journalist Chet Flippo and Kentucky historian W. Lynn Nickell both have asserted that 21-year-old Kentuckian Paul Gilley wrote the lyrics, then sold them to Williams along with the rights, allowing Williams to take credit for it. They also claimed Gilley wrote the lyrics to "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and other songs before drowning at the age of 27. The claims have not been widely accepted.

Chart performance

Tony Bennett version

That same year, it was recorded in a pop version by Tony Bennett with a light orchestral arrangement from Percy Faith. This recording was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 39449. It first reached the Billboard magazine charts on July 20, 1951, and lasted 27 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 1.

The popularity of Bennett's version has been credited with helping to expose both Williams and country music to a wider national audience. Allmusic writer Bill Janovitz discusses this unlikely combination:

That a young Italian singing waiter from Queens could find common ground with a country singer from Alabama's backwoods is testament both to Williams' skills as a writer and to Bennett's imagination and artist's ear.

Williams subsequently telephoned Bennett to say, "Tony, why did you ruin my song?" But that was a prank – in fact, Williams liked Bennett's version and played it on jukeboxes whenever he could. In his autobiography The Good Life, Bennett described playing "Cold, Cold Heart" at the Grand Ole Opry later in the 1950s. He had brought his usual arrangement charts to give to the house musicians who would be backing him, but their instrumentation was different and they declined the charts. "You sing and we'll follow you," they said, and Bennett says they did so beautifully, once again recreating an unlikely artistic merger.

The story of the Williams–Bennett telephone conversation is often related with mirth by Bennett in interviews and on stage; he still performs the song in concert. In 1997, the first installment of A&E's Live By Request featuring Bennett (who was also the show's creator), special guest Clint Black performed the song, after which Bennett recounted it. Bennett re-recorded the song as a duet with Tim McGraw for the 2006 album Duets: An American Classic. A Google Doodle featured Bennett's recording of the song on its Valentine's Day doodle in February 2012.

In 2012, Bennett recorded once again "Cold, Cold Heart" in a duet with Argentinian singer-songwriter Vicentico for Viva Duets, a studio album of Bennett in collaboration with Latin American music stars, released in October 2012.

Notable cover versions

• Jazz singer Norah Jones included a sultry swing version on her 2002 album Come Away With Me, which was seen as "re-introducing" modern audiences to the song.
• Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams earned a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her cover of the song in 2002.

Use in media

During the credits for the 2013 videogame Batman: Arkham Origins, the Joker, voiced by Troy Baker, can be heard singing the song.

A quest in the 2010 post-apocalyptic open world action-RPG Fallout: New Vegas uses this song as its name.

References

1. "U.S. Copyright Office Virtual Card Catalog 1946-1954". vcc.copyright.gov. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
2. "Hank Williams CD Issues". jazzdiscography.com. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
3. "Hank Williams". www.rockabillyhall.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
4. ^ Escott, Merritt & MacEwen 2004.
5. Escott, Merritt & MacEwen 2004, p. 337.
6. KET - Kentucky Educational Television (29 July 2013). "Songwriter Paul Gilley - Kentucky Life - KET". YouTube. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
7. "New biography on Morgan Co. songwriter Paul Gilley". Appalachian Attitude. WMMT 88.7 Mountain Community Radio. July 2, 2012. Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
8. Staff (June 6, 2012). "E.Ky. writer penned two of Hank Sr.'s biggest hits". The Mountain Eagle. Whitesburg, Kentucky.
9. Chet Flippo (1997). Your Cheatin' Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams (revised ed.). Plexo. pp. 7, 130, 150. ISBN 9780859652322.
10. Tennessee Walt , (2020) “The Curious Case of Paul Gilley”, Tennessee Walt. (Accessed: March 25, 2023): “… there are a small number of people who, quite sincerely, believe that—at least in the case of ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ (1949) and ‘Cold, Cold Heart’ (1951)—the answer is Paul Gilley.”
11. "session". 6 September 2014. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
12. "Tony Bennett's back for his heart". San Francisco Examiner. September 11, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
13. ^ Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 9 - Tennessee Firebird: American country music before and after Elvis. [Part 1]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
14. Whitburn, Joel (1973). Top Pop Records 1940-1955. Record Research.
15. Cold, Cold Heart - Hank Williams | Song Info | AllMusic, retrieved 2021-08-19
16. Morrison, Nick (August 17, 2012). "Jazz Goes Honky-Tonkin': The Songs Of Hank Williams". NPR Jazz: A Blog Supreme. NPR.org. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
17. Flippo, Chet (February 21, 2004). "Nashville Skyline: Where Was Norah Jones?". CMT News. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
18. "Artist: Lucinda Williams". The Recording Academy. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved April 27, 2020.

Sources

• Escott, Colin; Merritt, George; MacEwen, William (2004). Hank Williams: The Biography. New York: Little, Brown.

• 1951 songs
• Songs written by Hank Williams
• Hank Williams songs
• The Fontane Sisters songs
• Tony Bennett songs
• Petula Clark songs
• Johnny Cash songs
• Louis Armstrong songs
• Aretha Franklin songs
• Bill Haley songs
• Rosemary Clooney songs
• George Jones songs
• Guy Mitchell songs
• Jerry Lee Lewis songs
• Frankie Laine songs
• Glen Campbell songs
• Number-one singles in the United States
• Billboard Hot Country Songs number-one singles of the year