He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a Polish American family and lived in Abrams during his youth. He learned to play the fiddle from his father, who was a professional polka musician. In the 1930s, he toured and made cowboy movies with Gene Autry. King joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1937.
In 1946, while the bandleader of Pee Wee King & his Golden West Cowboys, King, together with the band's vocalist, Redd Stewart, composed "The Tennessee Waltz", inspired by "The Kentucky Waltz" by bluegrass musician Bill Monroe. King and Stewart first recorded "The Tennessee Waltz" in 1948, and it went on to become a country music standard.
King's other songs included "Slow Poke" and "You Belong to Me", both co-authored with Chilton Price and Redd Stewart. His songs introduced waltzes, polkas, and cowboy songs to country music.
King was not permitted to use the drummer and trumpeter he featured on his stage shows when the band played at the Grand Ole Opry. King refused to change his band's sound at the Grand Ole Opry, over the years being among the first to introduce or popularize drums (along with Bob Wills, who defied the Opry ban in 1945), horns, the accordion, and electric instruments including the pedal steel guitar to the Opry's brand of country music. His band also introduced on-stage dancing and Nudie Cohn's customized 'rhinestone cowboy' outfits to the Opry which later became popular with Nashville and country musicians, including Elvis Presley.
He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1974.
He joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry for the In the Heat of the Night cast CD Christmas Time’s A Comin’ performing "Jingle Bells" with the cast released on Sonlite and MGM/UA for one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers.
He died of a heart attack in Louisville, Kentucky, at age 86.
Tennessee Waltz
Pee Wee King Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With my darlin
To the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see!
I Introduced him
To my loved one
And while they were walzin
My friend stole my sweetheart from me!
I remember the night
And the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my
Little darlin
The night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz!
I remember the night
And the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my
Little darlin
The night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz!
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz!
The song "Tennessee Waltz" by Pee Wee King is a slow, plaintive ballad about a man who is attending a dance with his sweetheart when he runs into an old friend. He introduces this friend to his loved one and the two of them begin to dance. While they are waltzing, the man's friend steals his sweetheart away from him. The lyrics describe the sense of loss that the man feels, both for his lost love and for the memory of the perfect night that was destroyed by his friend's betrayal.
The act of introducing his friend to his sweetheart is a metaphor for the way in which old relationships can intrude upon the present. The song speaks to the pain of losing someone you love, but also to the way in which cherished memories can be tainted by the cruel hand of fate. The repeated refrain of "the beautiful Tennessee Waltz" serves as a reminder of both the beauty of the dance itself and the fact that even in the midst of heartbreak, there are still moments of beauty and grace to be found.
Line by Line Meaning
I was waltzin
I was dancing a waltz
With my darlin
With my partner, someone close to me
To the Tennessee Waltz
A specific type of waltz named after the state of Tennessee
When an old friend I happened to see!
When I saw an acquaintance from my past
I Introduced him
I made the acquaintance known to my partner
To my loved one
To the person I care about
And while they were walzin
While they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me!
My acquaintance betrayed my trust by taking my partner away from me
I remember the night
I can recall the specific evening
And the Tennessee Waltz
During the performance of the specific waltz named after Tennessee
Now I know just how much I have lost
I now realize the magnitude of my loss
Yes, I lost my
I no longer have with me
Little darlin
The person I deeply cared for
The night they were playing
During the musical performance of the Tennessee Waltz
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz!
The specific type of waltz that was performed that night
Contributed by Mason B. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Swingman 56
I didn't know that this song existed before Patti's version. Thanks for the education, the78prof! An appealing version, to boot!
86smcneil
PeeWee King and Redd Stewart wrote this. I dated Redd Stewart's son in high school.
TheJonaco
Patti Page made it the first country-pop crossover mega-hit. The University of Tennessee Marching Band plays it before (uptempo) and after (3/4 time) every Vol football game. My favorite cover was done by my all-time favorite singer, lovely Anne Murray. But I had no idea that it was written by a Polish accordion player from Milwaukee! Pee Wee loved "old-time"- that means "country" in Wisconsin and Minnesota- music, too, and became a Nashville fixture with both this song and many other hits; his own "Slow Poke" ('52) and the standard "You Belong To Me" (Jo Stafford, Duprees, et al.) were just two of them. He even introduced the gaudy "Nudie
Suits" to the Opry! Fun fact: Pee Wee was booked for the Opry in April of '45, but the broadcast was canceled because FDR had passed two days earlier. He brought his band to the Ryman, anyway, with fans admitted free- the first act to play that hallowed hall with drums and horns!
(Bob Wills, king of Western swing, was the first to do so with drums alone.) This exception was made because it wasn't an official Opry broadcast, but the ban stayed for many years (see Part 2 for more).
TheJonaco
Add Opry: After Pee Wee's unofficial show, other acts with "non-country" instruments still couldn't play the Ryman. In '63, Duane Eddy- my all-time favorite guitar player- recorded his first-ever LP in Nashville (his earlier hits were all cut in Arizona). Chet Atkins brought him to the Ryman on an Opry night and invited Duane to play on stage. When he said he'd bring his sax player, too, Atkins- the great Music City guitar genius- politely told him to go home. His precise words:
"We don't play no saxophones on the Opry! It's the devil's horn!" That was the Nashville establishment, all right, but Duane would eventually settle down there.
Classy musician, classy guy.
Rube Waddell
Australia's 92nd number one hit along with Patti Pages version
ariana beer
my grandparents on my mother's side used to waltz to this song
The31262
Les and Mary had a good cover of it too
viatcheslav Kalashnikov
Patsy Cline did very good version
Matthew Palmer
What cartridge and turntable do you use?
TonyBuemi
Agree Patti Page made it hers