Hank Williams – Lost Highway

This is country music stripped down to what matters. A great song, a small group of musicians, and a singer who makes you believe every word. His songwriting was beyond reproach. Ironically, this is one of my favorite Hank songs and one of the very few he didn’t actually write.

I’ve always loved Hank Williams, and this is one of those recordings where everything fits. His voice, the steel guitar, fiddle, and most of all the feeling. There is nothing fancy about it. It doesn’t need to be.

One interesting thing about it is that Hank didn’t write it. The song was written by Leon Payne, a blind country singer and songwriter who recorded his own version in 1948. Payne spent part of his early career traveling around looking for work. According to his wife, he came up with the song while hitchhiking from California back to Texas to visit his sick mother. He couldn’t get a ride and eventually received help from the Salvation Army. Somewhere along that road came this song.

Hank recorded the song on March 1, 1949, at Castle Studio in Nashville with Fred Rose producing. The musicians included Dale Potter on fiddle, Don Davis on steel guitar, Zeb Turner on electric guitar, Jack Shook on rhythm guitar, Clyde Baum on mandolin, and probably Ernie Newton on bass. Hank’s version was released by MGM later in 1949 and peaked at #12 on the country charts.

The strange thing is how perfectly the song fits Hank Williams. If you didn’t know better, you would swear he wrote it about himself. The lost man, the rambling, the mistakes, and knowing where the road is taking you but continuing down it anyway. Hank was only 25 years old when he recorded it. Less than four years later, he was gone. He packed a lot of living into those years, and you can hear and see it.

Leon Payne wrote this song, but when Hank Williams sang it, somehow it became his highway.

Leon Payne singing his song, Lost Highway.

Lost Highway

I’m a rolling stone, all alone and lost
For a life of sin, I have paid the cost
When I pass by, all the people say
“Just another guy on the lost highway”

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
And a woman’s lies makes a life like mine
Oh, the day we met, I went astray
I started rolling down that lost highway

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you
And now I’m lost, too late to pray
Lord, I paid the cost on the lost highway

Now, boys, don’t start to rambling around
On this road of sin, are you sorrow bound?
Take my advice or you’ll curse the day
You started rolling down that lost highway