Inspired by the recurring series of posts on one of my favourite blogs, Aquarium Drunkard, called Sevens I thought it was time to bring some life into this blog again by introducing a similar themed series here as well. These posts will be coming every now and then and will be a tribute to great stand alone songs. My only criteria is that the songs actually has been released as singles.
One of my favourite radio channels, The Current, and the great program American Routes where on this morning when I was having breakfast. The theme on the program today was train-songs and songs about the mighty Mississippi. Travelling songs if you may. If you didn't hear it I believe it might be available as a podcast over at thecurrent.org. One of the songs played on the show was Hank Williams' "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", a song I hadn't heard in quite a while. It's a damn fine song, and one of the most moving vocal performances from Hank Sr. in my humble opinion. The way he gets that 'high and lonesome' almost yodel-sound when he sings the chorus just breaks my heart.
In the song Hank Sr. is broken after being left by a girl and is about to find himself a river where he is going to "..go down three times but only coming up twice."
The song was released as a single in 1950 backed with the almost equally great song "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy" and hit the number one position on the Country and Western charts on April 22nd 1950.
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