Recording

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
Hank Williams

Independently chosen for2 of our lists. Here is what each of them said.

Released

1949

Label

MGM

On

Country and Sung to Someone

Updated

2026-08-30

1. 01

   Ranked No. 1 in Country

   A whippoorwill, a falling star and a man who cannot say the thing directly. The most imitated lyric in American songwriting, and nobody has bettered it.

2. ·

   Picked by Sung to Someone

   It reads as a nature poem — a whippoorwill, a falling star — right up to "did you ever see a robin weep". Every image in it is being handed to somebody. He is not describing loneliness; he is telling one person what it is doing to him.