COLD COLD HEART
“Cold, Cold Heart” is a country music and popular music song, written by Hank
Williams. This blues ballad is both a classic of honky tonk and an entry in the Great
American Songbook. Williams first recorded and released the song in 1951, where it
reached #1 on the country music singles chart. The song achingly and artfully describes
frustration that the singer’s love and trust is unreciprocated due to a prior bad experience
in the other’s past.
That same year it was recorded in a pop version by Tony Bennett with a light orchestral
arrangement from Percy Faith.. It first reached the Billboard magazine charts on July 20,
1951 and lasted 27 weeks on the chart, peaking at #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. This story is often related with mirth by Bennett in
interviews and on stage; he still performs the song in concert as of 2005.
“Cold, Cold Heart” has since been recorded by countless other artists, including Petula
Clark, Johnny Cash, Louis Armstrong, Bill Haley & His Comets, Rosemary Clooney,
Dinah Washington, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, and Ronny Hawkins. Freddy Fender
had a Spanish-language hit with his own translation under the title “Tu Frio Corazon”.
I tried so hard my dear to show that you’re my every dream.
Yet you’re afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme
A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart
Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue
And so my heart is paying now for things I didn’t do
In anger unkind words are spoke that make the teardrops start
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind,and melt your cold cold heart
You’ll never know how much it hurts to see you sit and cry
You know you need and want my love yet you’re afraid to try
Why do you run and hide from life,to try it just ain’t smart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold heart
There was a time when I believed that you belonged to me
