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.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
George Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
On one cold and cloudy day
When I saw an old hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by
There's a better home a-waiting
Undertaker, Mr. Undertaker
Will you please, drive your wagon slow
For thie lady, the one you're hauling
Lord, I hate to see here go
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by
There's a better home a-waiting
In the sky, lord, in the sky
In the sky, lord, in the sky
George Jones's "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" is a mournful song that recounts the singer's grief at his mother's passing. The lyrics depict the singer's somber feelings as he watches an old hearse come to take his mother away. The opening verse describes the singer's vantage point at his window from where he can see the hearse coming to take his beloved mother away.
The chorus, "Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, lord, by and by," expresses the singer's hope of eventually reuniting with his mother in a better home that awaits them in the afterlife. The following verse sees the singer requesting the undertaker to drive their wagon slowly for the lady, referring to his mother, whose loss he deeply regrets.
The final chorus reinforces the singer's hope and faith in the afterlife as they repeat, "There's a better home a-waiting in the sky, lord, in the sky." This serves as a final hope of reuniting with his mother when they pass away.
Line by Line Meaning
I was standing by my window,
The singer was standing by a window on a cold and cloudy day.
On one cold and cloudy day
The weather on the day the singer was standing by his window was cold and cloudy.
When I saw an old hearse come rolling
The singer saw an old hearse approaching.
For to carry my mother away
The hearse was there to take the artist's mother's body away.
Will the circle be unbroken
The artist is questioning whether or not the circle of life will continue unbroken.
By and by, lord, by and by
The singer uses a phrase to represent the passage of time, hoping that the circle of life will continue without interruption.
There's a better home a-waiting
The singer believes that there is a better place to go after dying.
In the sky, lord, in the sky
The better place is referred to as being in the sky.
Undertaker, Mr. Undertaker
The artist is addressing the undertaker by his title and name.
Will you please, drive your wagon slow
The artist is asking the undertaker to drive slowly as they take his mother's body away.
For thie lady, the one you're hauling
The singer is referring to his mother's body as 'this lady' who is being taken away in the hearse.
Lord, I hate to see here go
The artist expresses his sadness at seeing his mother being taken away.
In the sky, lord, in the sky
The singer repeats the phrase referring to the better place where his mother's soul will go after leaving this world.
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Written by: ROEBUCK STAPLES, PUBLIC DOMAIN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind