I’m in Nashville for a few days with my bride and some lifelong friends. Music City is always a good time and a place to dig into some of the stories behind the songs we love (The Ryman Auditorium, The Johnny Cash Museum, Studio Tours, The Country Music Hall of Fame, etc.)
I’ve been listening to Hank Williams because how can we not? Williams had a difficult relationship with the Nashville music establishment. They were trying to clean up their act, make the industry presentable and Williams was too much a hillbilly, exactly the image they were trying to escape. His drinking and no shows did not help. They accepted him in to the Grand Old Opry and then threw him out.
“Never Get Out of this World Alive,” co-written with Fred Rose, became the last track Williams would record and it hit the airwaves posthumously in 1952. It carries his sense of doom and humor, his luck all gone bad, his fishing pole is broke, his woman has left him, things are bad. And then the refrain:
No matter how I struggle and strive
I’ll never get out of this world alive
He’s meeting the Grim Reaper with a smile on his face.
#Songoftheday #Spreadinghappiness #HankWilliams #Nashville
YouTube: https://youtu.be/19vApPwWqh8?si=IWYh6LYxmnC_oG03
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/3oVnKFUV8lHAoeK0lgnXvf?si=9b92006aee1d49e8