Johnny Paycheck – Old Violin

“Old Violin”, Song written and recorded by Johnny Paycheck for the Mercury label, was recorded in February 1986 in East Avalon Recorders, Muscle Shoals, AL. In the same recording session, four other songs were recorded: “Come to me”, “Butterflies and babies”, “She don’t love me all the time” and “Caught Between A Rock And A Soft Place”. In the recording session, Johnny was accompanied by: Roy Flacke (guitar), John Long (guitar), Chuck Mandes (steel), Ralph Ezell (bass), Owen Hale (drums), Ronny Sears (fiddle) and Steve Nathan (keyboards). With the production of Stan Cornelius and Johnny Paycheck, the song was released in June 1986, and on July 26, 1986, reached # 21 on the charts of US Hot Country Songs, remaining a total of 22 weeks on the charts On the Canadian RPM Country Singles charts, It reach number # 36.

The song was included on the only album that Johnny Paycheck recorded for the Mercury label, Modern Times (Mercury 1986), the album was released in March 1986, reaching # 54 on the US Top Country Albums charts, on September 30, May 1986, remaining on the charts for a total of 12 weeks.

Paycheck’s greatest statement of heartbreak describes feeling like the end is near– be it the end of a relationship or of an old fiddle player’s life. I’ve taught this one to a bright young understudy: the late Daryle Singletary.

Versions:

James Sagrest 1999 (Cherry Records)
Daryle Singletary 2002 (Audium)
Larry Cordle 2004 (CMH Records)
George Strait 2019 (MCA)

Miquel Batlle Garriga
mbatllegarriga@gmail.com

Johnny Paycheck – Old Violin Lyrics
I can’t recall one time in my life
I’ve felt as lonely as I do tonight
I feel like I could lay down and get up no more
It’s the damndest feeling, I never felt it before

Tonight I feel like an old violin
Soon to be put away and never played again

Don’t ask me why I feel like this, hell I can’t say
I only wish this feeling would just go away
I guess it’s ’cause the truth is the hardest thing I ever faced
‘Cause you can’t change the truth in the slightest way
I tried
So I asked myself
I said “John, where do you go from here?
Then like a fool, I turned around and looked in the mirror

And there I would see an old violin
Soon to be put away and never played again

So one more time, just to be sure
I said “John, where in the hell do you go from here?”
You know there wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference when I looked in the mirror

‘Cause there I was seein’ an old violin
Soon to be put away and never played again
And just like that, it hit me
Why that old violin and I were just alike
We’d give our all to music
And soon, we’d give our life