«You’re Gonna Change (Or I’m Gonna Leave)» written by Hank Williams. It was released as a single on MGM Records in September 1949 and reached #4 on the Best Selling Retail Folk Records chart.
«You’re Gonna Change (Or I’m Gonna Leave)» was the fourth in a remarkable string of twenty Top 10 hits that Williams would have between 1949 and his death on New Year’s Day 1953. The song was a prime example of the typical Hank Williams A-side: an up-tempo, honky tonk number that could be danced to. In the song, the narrator accuses his wife of lying and warns her that she had better change her ways or he will make good on her empty threats to leave. Williams biographer Colin Escott writes that the song was «clearly born of the dissent on Charles Street,» where Hank shared an often tempestuous home life with his wife Audrey Williams. He recorded the song with backing from Dale Potter (fiddle), Don Davis (steel guitar), Zeb Turner (lead guitar), Clyde Baum (mandolin), Jack Shook (rhythm guitar), and probably Ernie Newton (bass). It was cut at Castle Studio in Nashville on March 2, 1949 with Fred Rose producing.
B-side «Lost Highway»
Published August 5, 1949 Acuff-Rose Publications
Released September 9, 1949
Recorded March 2, 1949
Studio Castle Studio, Nashville
Genre Country & Western, Honky-tonk
Length 2:56
Label MGM K10506
Songwriter(s) Hank Williams
Producer(s) Fred Rose
Hank Williams – You’re Gonna Change (Or I’m Gonna Leave) Lyrics
You wore out a brand new trunk
Packin’ and unpackin’ your junk
Your daddy’s mad; He’s done got pee-eeved
You’re Gonna Change or I’m a-gonna leave.
[CHORUS]
You’re gonna change your way of livin’
Change the things you do
Stop doin’ all the things that you oughten too
Your daddy’s mad; He’s done got pee-eeved
You’re Gonna Change or I’m a-gonna leave.
This ain’t right and that is wrong
You just keep naggin’, all the day long
Its gotta stop, I don’t mean plea-ease
Now, You’re Gonna Change or I’m a-gonna leave.
The way to keep a woman happy
And make her do what’s right
Is love her ev’ry mornin’, bawl her out at night
Your daddy’s mad; He’s done got pee-eeved
Now, You’re Gonna Change or I’m a-gonna leave.
Ev’ry time you get mad
You pack your rags and go back to dad
You tell him lies he don’t belie-ieve
Now, You’re Gonna Change or I’m a-gonna leave.
[CHORUS]
