Hank Williams
American · Mid-20th century
American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most significant country music artists of all time; died at 29 after writing approximately 160 songs, many about heartbreak, loneliness, and failed relationships.
Connection to Taylor Swift
Uncle Jerry frames Williams as 'the country Western 1950 version of Taylor Swift', a prolific songwriter whose catalogue is dominated by songs about terrible relationships, things going wrong, and things ending poorly, paralleling the documentary-of-heartbreak quality of Taylor's catalogue.
Notable Works
- I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Your Cheatin' Heart, Cold, Cold Heart, Lovesick Blues, Long Gone Lonesome Blues
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
Uncle Jerry frames Hank Williams as the country-music genealogical analogue to Taylor Swift, a prolific songwriter whose catalogue is dominated by songs about heartbreak, loneliness, and failed relationships. The parallel is to Williams's catalogue as a whole rather than to evermore-specific lyric content. 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' (1949) stands here as the representative anchor, Williams's most enduring lonesome-cataloguing song and a fair instance of the register Uncle Jerry was describing.