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.
For The Good Times
George Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray
Lyin' cold the way you left them
But at least your lips caressed them while you packed
And a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee that you poured and didn't drink
But at least you thought you wanted it, that's so much more than I can say for me
It's been a good year for the roses
The lawn could stand another mowin'
Funny, I don't even care
When you turned and walked away
And as the door behind you closes
The only thing I know to say
It's been a good year for the roses
After three full years of marriage
It's the first time that you haven't made the bed
I guess the reason we're not talkin', there's so little left to say we haven't said
While a million thoughts go runnin' through my mind, I find I haven't spoke a word
And from the bedroom those familiar sounds of our one baby's cryin' goes unheard
But what a good year for the roses
Many blooms still linger there
The lawn could stand another mowin'
Funny, I don't even care
And when you turned and walked away
As the door behind you closes
The only thing I know to say
It's been a good year for the roses
In George Jones's song "A Good Year for the Roses," the singer is mourning the end of his marriage. He sees his estranged wife's lipstick on cigarettes in the ashtray and thinks about how she had once caressed them while packing. He also notices a lip print on a cup of coffee that she poured but didn't drink, which speaks to her conflicting emotions about leaving. He contrasts this with his own lack of feeling, stating that he can't even say he wants something as much as she wanted that cup of coffee.
The chorus is a bittersweet reflection on the passage of time and the beauty of life despite its pains. The roses in the garden are still blooming, despite the end of the relationship, and the lawn still needs to be mowed, but the singer doesn't even care. As his wife walks out the door, he can only say that it's been a good year for the roses, acknowledging the way nature continues on despite human heartache.
Overall, the song captures the sense of sadness and loss that can come when a relationship ends, while also highlighting the beauty that can be found in life despite hardship.
Line by Line Meaning
I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick
The sight of your lipstick on the ashtray is hurting me badly.
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray
Your lipstick is marked on the cigarettes lying cold in the ashtray.
Lyin' cold the way you left them
The cigarettes are lying cold because you left them without finishing.
But at least your lips caressed them while you packed
Although you left the cigarettes without finishing, your lips touched them while packing, which reminds me of you.
And a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee that you poured and didn't drink
There is a lip print on the coffee cup you half-filled but didn't drink, which shows that you thought you wanted it but didn't.
But at least you thought you wanted it, that's so much more than I can say for me
You at least had the intention of drinking the coffee, but I can't even say that about myself anymore.
It's been a good year for the roses
This year has been good for the roses as they have bloomed beautifully.
Many blooms still linger there
There are still many rose blooms remaining, and their beauty continues to linger.
The lawn could stand another mowin'
The lawn needs another mowing job, but I don't care about it anymore.
Funny, I don't even care
It's strange that I don't even care, despite the fact that our relationship has fallen apart.
When you turned and walked away
When you left me and walked away from our relationship.
And as the door behind you closes
As you closed the door while leaving, knowing that we can never go back to what we had.
The only thing I know to say
The only thing I can say for sure is that.
After three full years of marriage
Even after being married for three years.
It's the first time that you haven't made the bed
It's the first time you haven't made the bed after waking up in the morning.
I guess the reason we're not talkin', there's so little left to say we haven't said
I feel like we are not talking because we have already said everything there is to say, and there is nothing left.
While a million thoughts go runnin' through my mind
I have a million thoughts running through my mind, but I can't figure out which one to express.
I find I haven't spoke a word
I realize that I haven't spoken a single word during this entire time because I don't know what to say.
And from the bedroom those familiar sounds of our one baby's cryin' goes unheard
I can hear the sound of our baby crying from the bedroom, but I can't find it in me to respond.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JERRY CHESNUT
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind