Born in Texas, Jones first heard country music when he was seven, and was given a guitar at the age of nine. He married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvillion, in 1950, and was divorced in 1951. He served in the United States Marine Corps and was discharged in 1953. He married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. In 1959, Jones recorded "White Lightning", written by J. P. Richardson, which launched his career as a singer. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1968; he married fellow country music singer Tammy Wynette a year later. Years of alcoholism compromised his health and led to his missing many performances, earning him the nickname "No Show Jones". After his divorce from Wynette in 1975, Jones married his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, in 1983 and became sober for good in 1999. Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure.
George Jones has been called "The Rolls Royce Of Country Music" and had more than 160 chart singles to his name from 1955 until his death in 2013. Johnny Cash once said, "When people ask me who my favorite country singer is, I say, 'You mean besides George Jones?'"
Jones tirelessly defended the integrity of country music, telling Billboard in 2006, "It's never been for love of money. I thank God for it because it makes me a living. But I sing because I love it, not because of the dollar signs." Jones also went out of his way to promote younger country singers that he felt were as passionate about the music as he was. "Everybody knows he's a great singer," Alan Jackson stated in 1995, "but what I like most about George is that when you meet him, he is like some old guy that works down at the gas station...even though he's a legend!"
Shortly after Jones' death, Andrew Mueller wrote about his influence in Uncut, "He was one of the finest interpretive singers who ever lifted a microphone...There cannot be a single country songwriter of the last 50-odd years who has not wondered what it might be like to hear their words sung by that voice." In an article for The Texas Monthly in 1994, Nick Tosches eloquently described the singer's vocal style: "While he and his idol, Hank Williams, have both affected generations with a plaintive veracity of voice that has set them apart, Jones has an additional gift—a voice of exceptional range, natural elegance, and lucent tone. Gliding toward high tenor, plunging toward deep bass, the magisterial portamento of his onward-coursing baritone emits white-hot sparks and torrents of blue, investing his poison love songs with a tragic gravity and inflaming his celebrations of the honky-tonk ethos with the hellfire of abandon." In the New Republic essay "Why George Jones ranks with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday," David Hajdu writes:
"Jones had a handsome and strange voice. His singing was always partly about the appeal of the tones he produced, regardless of the meaning of the words. In this sense, Jones had something in common with singers of formal music and opera, though his means of vocal production were radically different from theirs. He sang from the back of his throat, rather than from deep in his diaphragm. He tightened his larynx to squeeze sound out. He clenched his jaw, instead of wriggling it free. He forced wind through his teeth, and the notes sounded weirdly beautiful."
David Cantwell recalled in 2013, "His approach to singing, he told me once, was to call up those memories and feelings of his own that most closely corresponded to those being felt by the character in whatever song he was performing. He was a kind of singing method actor, creating an illusion of the real." In the liner notes to Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country Rich Kienzle states, "Jones sings of people and stories that are achingly human. He can turn a ballad into a catharsis by wringing every possible emotion from it, making it a primal, strangled cry of anguish". In 1994, country music historian Colin Escott pronounced, "Contemporary country music is virtually founded on reverence for George Jones. Walk through a room of country singers and conduct a quick poll, George nearly always tops it." In the wake of Jones's death, Merle Haggard pronounced in Rolling Stone, "His voice was like a Stradivarius violin: one of the greatest instruments ever made." Emmylou Harris wrote, "when you hear George Jones sing, you are hearing a man who takes a song and makes it a work of art - always," a quote that appeared on the sleeve of Jones' 1976 album The Battle. In the documentary Same Ole Me, several country music stars offer similar thoughts. Randy Travis: "It sounds like he's lived every minute of every word that he sings and there's very few people who can do that"; Tom T. Hall: "It was always Jones who got the message across just right"; and Roy Acuff: "I'd give anything if I could sing like George Jones". In the same film, producer Billy Sherrill states, "All I did was change the instrumentation around him. I don't think he's changed at all."
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed George Jones among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Don't You Ever Get Tired
George Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You're happy when I'm out of my mind
You don't love me, but you won't let me be
Don't you ever get tired of hurtin' me
(Chorus)
You must think I look bad with a smile
For you haven't let me wear one
Still I keep running back, why must this be
Don't you ever get tired of hurtin' me
[Chorus]
In George Jones's song Don't You Ever Get Tired, the lyrics speak of a toxic relationship where the singer is being emotionally hurt, yet they keep coming back. The opening line, "You make my eyes run over all the time" suggests that the singer is constantly crying because of their partner's behavior. The second line, "You're happy when I'm out of my mind" implies that the partner enjoys the singer's misery or madness. It's a vicious cycle where the partner hurts him, the singer cries, and the partner continues to hurt him, all while seemingly finding some sort of joy in it.
The chorus emphasizes the sadness of the situation. The singer asks, "You must think I look bad with a smile, for you haven't let me wear one in such a long, long while" which basically means that the singer hasn't been happy in a long time, and the partner seems to enjoy their unhappiness. The singer is aware of this tragedy, but still admits that "still I keep running back." It is possible that the singer is addressing their lover directly in the song, but it's also possible that they are talking to themselves, questioning why they continue to let a toxic relationship continue.
Line by Line Meaning
You make my eyes run over all the time
You cause me to cry constantly
You're happy when I'm out of my mind
You take pleasure in seeing me upset and losing control
You don't love me, but you won't let me be
You don't have genuine feelings for me, yet you still won't leave me alone
Don't you ever get tired of hurtin' me
Do you not ever grow weary of causing me emotional pain?
You must think I look bad with a smile
You believe I don't look good when I'm happy
For you haven't let me wear one in such a long, long while
You haven't allowed me to experience happiness for a significant amount of time
Still I keep running back, why must this be
Despite being hurt by you repeatedly, I keep returning - I wonder why that is?
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: HANK COCHRAN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind