On This Day in 1962, George Jones Mixed “Pain and Heartache With an Ironic Sense of Denial and a Dash of Self Pity” To Make the Most-Requested Song of His Historic Career

Still widely regarded as the greatest country singer of all time, George Jones had—in many ways—little choice in his fate. Growing up in the Big Thicket region of Southeast Texas, his alcoholic father would return home from the bars, rouse his son from a deep sleep, and demand he sing for him and his drinking buddies. Instead of souring him on singing, however, these late-night performances turned Jones into “someone who had to sing,” according to country music historian Robert K. Oermann.

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On this day (Jan. 3) in 1962, the seven-time CMA Award winner would record the track that became his “career song—and that’s saying something for an artist with 14 No. 1 hits, 143 Top 40 hits, and five Grammy Awards.

This Tune Made George Jones a Superstar

Sometime after songwriters Dickey Lee and Steve Duffy penned “She Thinks I Still Care,” legendary producer Jack Clement played the mournful song for George Jones at Gulf Coast Studio in Beaumont, Texas.

Jones was initially dismissive of the song, according to biographer Bob Allen, griping that “it’s got too many damn ‘just becauses’ in it. I don’t think nobody really wants to hear that s—, do you?”

That isn’t the way the artist nicknamed “Possum” remembered it, however. “Boy, I just flipped! I said, ‘Golly, lemme have this thing,’” Jones said in the 1989 documentary Same Ole Me.

Regardless of his initial enthusiasm levels, the Country Music Hall of Famer would go on to record “She Thinks I Still Care” and release it in April 1962 as his first single with United Artists after leaving Mercury behind.

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♬ original sound – Jerri Senn

Blending “pain and heartache with an ironic sense of denial and a dash of self pity”—according to Rolling Stone—“She Thinks I Still Care” rose the ranks of the Hot Country Songs chart, spending a total of six weeks at No. 1.

[RELATED: 3 Songs From 1962 That Single-Handedly Changed Country Music Forever]

“For years after I recorded it, the song was my most requested,” Jones wrote in his 1996 autobiography I Lived To Tell It All. “And it became what people in my business call a ‘career record,’ the song that firmly establishes your identity with the public.”

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, “She Thinks I Still Care” has been recorded by artists including Elvis Presley, Patty Loveless, Anne Murray, and Connie Francis.

Featured image by Jasper Dailey/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images