Being able to put one’s emotions to the side and deliver a stunning performance no matter how irritated, angry, or sad one might be is the hallmark of any good singer, which is why when you listen to one of Patsy Cline’s biggest singles, “Walkin’ After Midnight”, you would never know that the singer hated the song with such ferocity that it made her cry angry, frustrated tears. The song, Cline attempted to argue multiple times, simply wasn’t country. She was a country girl. What did she have to do with a simple pop ditty?
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The answer to that question is the answer to most queries in the music industry: because it pays. Cline had yet to score a hit with her record label, Four Star Records, and the suits were getting nervous. When they caught wind of a song that Kay Starr had already rejected, they presented it to Cline via telephone. She didn’t hold back.
When Four Star president Bill McCall told Cline the name of the song, she replied, “I don’t like it.” McCall urged her to wait to hear the track first, but it failed to change her mind. “I hate it,” she said after hearing the song. McCall played it again. “I still hate it,” she insisted.
Nevertheless, Cline was under contract with her record label, which meant that when McCall told her that he was flying her out to Los Angeles to record the song anyway, she had a legal obligation to do so.
Patsy Cline Cried Over Recording This Future Hit Song
Patsy Cline had no change of heart in between her contentious phone call with her record label’s president and her arrival in Los Angeles. She got into yet another confrontation in California, this time with one of the co-writers of “Walkin’ After Midnight”, Don Hecht. After staring each other down from across the room, they burst into laughter, both apologizing for being so stubborn. Hecht offered a compromise. If Cline recorded “Walkin’ After Midnight”, the songwriter would make sure Four Star would allow her to pick the song for the single’s B-side. Weary but hopeful to have some creative control, Cline agreed.
When the time came to record “Walkin’ After Midnight” on November 8, 1956, Cline was still struggling to relate to the tune that, to her, was far too pop-oriented for her taste as a country singer from Virginia. She spent the nights leading up to the recording session crying over her lack of creative control and success. Listening to the playback in the studio, she begged the producers to let her try again. However, her performance was enough to please them, and they refused.
Still, just as they promised, Cline was allowed to choose the single that would serve as the flipside to the song she detested so much. She opted for “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold)”. Cline’s pick was to be the A-side, and “Walkin’ After Midnight” would be the B-side. An appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts would change that.
How a Television Audience Solidified “Walkin’ After Midnight” Success
Sometime after Patsy Cline recorded her rendition of “Walkin’ After Midnight”, albeit begrudgingly, she received a call from Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, inviting her on the national television program. Cline planned to perform “A Poor Man’s Roses (Or a Rich Man’s Gold)”, but upon hearing “Walkin’ After Midnight”, the show producers insisted Cline sing that one instead. Foiled yet again.
Cline agreed. Not only did she have little choice in the matter to begin with, but she could also see the potential opportunity that was waiting for her on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. If the producers felt like “Walkin’ After Midnight” was the hit, then that’s the one she would do. And in the end, they were right. The audience response to Cline’s performance was so uproarious and incessant that their clapping, hooting, and hollering actually broke the show’s applause meter. It was the first time anything like that had ever happened on the program. Cline was, without a doubt, the winner of that night’s talent show.
Four Star Records opted to switch “Walkin’ After Midnight” from the single’s B-side to the A-side. Despite all of her previous reservations, “Walkin’ After Midnight” was Cline’s first big hit. The bluesy pop number peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and No. 12 on the Hot 100. Listening back to the track now, you would have never known she couldn’t stand it—a testament to the natural gift that makes her such a beloved singer to this day.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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