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.
You've Still Got A Place In My Heart
George Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Ever turns his back on you
Baby you've still got a place in my heart
If the years should make you cry
Darling give me one more try
For you've still got a place in my heart
Then I'll know a million fools
That love has made that way
So darling don't forget I've been your fool since we first met
And since you've still got a place in my heart
So darling don't forget
I've been your fool since we first met
Baby you've still got a place in my heart
Darlin' you've still got a place in my heart
In the first verse of George Jones's classic country ballad "You've Still Got A Place In My Heart," he offers reassurance to someone that they will always have a place in his heart if the person they thought was true ever turns their back on them. In the second verse, he pleads with his love interest to give him another chance if the years should make her cry. Jones admits he may be a fool for pleading with her to come back, but he is not alone as love has made million fools that way. He ends the song still holding on to his love for her, acknowledging that he has been her fool since they first met and that she has still got a place in his heart.
Line by Line Meaning
If the one you'd think is true
If your supposed true love ever abandons you
Ever turns his back on you
Ever shows you disloyalty and leaves you behind
Baby you've still got a place in my heart
My love for you never faded and you are always wanted back
If the years should make you cry
If time brings you tears and pain
Darling give me one more try
Please give me another chance to love you
For you've still got a place in my heart
You are still the one I truly love and care for
If I'm a fool to pray that you'll come back some day
Even if I appear foolish praying for your return
Then I'll know a million fools
As I'll be one of many who have loved and lost
That love has made that way
A victim of love's unpredictable nature
So darling don't forget I've been your fool since we first met
Remember that I have always loved and admired you since we first met
And since you've still got a place in my heart
My love for you has never died and I still want you
So darling don't forget
Please do not forget
I've been your fool since we first met
I have always been in love with you from the moment we met
Baby you've still got a place in my heart
My love for you is still strong and you are always in my heart
Darlin' you've still got a place in my heart
You are still my true love and I will always have a place for you in my heart
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: LEON PAYNE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind