George Jones - He Stopped Loving Her Today

Nobody figured George Jones would have made it to 81.  He was an anachronism in today's not-really-quite-country Nashville of rock/pop: born in a log cabin, finding solace in a bottle of booze rather than a bottle of pills, Jones and wife #3 Tammy Wynette simply owned Country music in the 1970s.  That was where the legend really came from:

The George Jones-Tammy Wynette Show became the big-ticket package tour of the early 1970s, but it was their increasingly stormy home life that began to grab the headlines. At the time or through book and movie accounts later, the entire world became aware of Wynette's attempts to keep Jones off the bottle and Jones countering with that famous trip aboard his riding mower to the liquor store closest to their mansion in south Nashville.

Because like his Dad back in Beaumont, George was a hard drinking man with a temper to match.  Like his Dad, nothing good came from that.  Wynette left him, his finances collapsed as the drink turned him into "no-show Jones" and by 1980 he was looking like just another washed up honkey tonk rummie.

But that's when he recorded this, probably his biggest hit.  With the help of his fourth wife, Nancy, who got him sober (and kept him sober).  His air time waned as country music began its shift towards the current Rascal Flatts/Taylor Swift bubble gum pop, assigning him and the other great old war horses like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard to the Sunday morning "classics" ghetto.

This song seems a fitting epitaph to the man who blazed so brightly with his country music partner.  Honest music from a man who was what he was.  Perhaps that's too old fashioned for today's Nashville.  Too bad about that. R.I.P. George Jones.  Thanks for all the great music.



He Stopped Loving Her Today (Songwriters: R. V. Braddock, C. Putman, Jr.)

He said I'll love you 'til I die
She told him you'll forget in time
As the years went slowly by
She still preyed upon his mind

He kept her picture on his wall
Went half crazy now and then
He still loved her through it all
Hoping she'd come back again

Kept some letters by his bed
Dated 1962
He had underlined in red
Every single I love you

I went to see him just today
Oh but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I'd seen him smile in years

He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today

(Spoken)
You know she came to see him one last time
Oh and we all wondered if she would
And it kept running through my mind
This time he's over her for good

He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today

UPDATE 27 April 2013 11:10: Reason has a fine tribute that's well worth your while.  And I hadn't known that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a fan who corresponded with Jones.