The No. 1 Hit George Jones Originally Hated: “Nobody Really Wants to Hear That”

The biggest musical stars become the biggest musical stars because they can speak directly to a global audience that will make them listen. But that doesn’t always mean that these stars know what that audience wants to hear. This includes George Jones, who, if he had his way, would have gladly passed on “She Thinks I Still Care”, his career-defining and chart-topping hit single from 1962.

Jones came across his future hit record while working at Gulf Coast Recording Studio in Beaumont, Texas. There, the country star lovingly dubbed “The Possum” worked alongside Bill Hall, the studio operator, and “Cowboy” Jack Clement, a world-class producer by way of Sun Records in Memphis. Hall and Clement had established the Hall-Clement Publishing Company alongside the studio and hired two contract writers, Dickie Lee Lipscomb and Steve Duffy.

Lipscomb and Duffy co-wrote “She Thinks I Still Care” in the early 1960s, and Clement believed it could be a hit for Jones. To try to convince him, Hall and Clement repeatedly played the demo on a “rinky-dink tape recorder,” per Gulf Coast session musician Raymond Nalley in George Jones: The Life And Times Of A Honky Tonk Legend. Jones’ response—repeated response—was less than enthusiastic.

George Jones Didn’t Believe “She Thinks I Still Care” Was a Hit

Per George Jones, by biographer Bob Allen, the Possum usually tried to deflect when Bill Hall and Jack Clement approached him with the demo tape. Allen writes, “‘I dunno, Jack.’ George would shift his weight jerkily from one foot to the other and grin that thin, inscrutable ‘Possum’ grin of his. ‘I don’t think I like it too much. It’s got too damn many ‘just becauses’ in it,’ referring with good-natured disparagement to the song’s rather insistent lyrical hook. ‘I don’t think nobody really wants ta hear that s***, do you? C’mon, let’s go get somethin’ to eat.’”

When Hall and Clement persisted anyway, Jones tried a different tactic. Each time the “rinky-dink tape recorder” appeared, Jones asked Hall and Clement if they would sell it to him. No comment on the song, no explanation for why he wouldn’t record it, just an offer to take the tape recorder and, presumably, get rid of it forever. Raymond Nalley recalled, “One day, Bill Hall finally told him, ‘Hell, George, if you’ll record the song, I’ll give ya the damn tape recorder!’”

Eventually, Jones acquiesced (once he landed an acceptable publishing deal, of course). He released his version of “She Thinks I Still Care” in April 1962. It was the first single he released since moving from Mercury to the new country division of United Artists Records. A lot was riding on this release, professionally speaking, and it paid off. Jones’ single topped the country music charts for six weeks and remained on the chart for an additional seventeen.

“She Thinks I Still Care” became one of Jones’ biggest hits, proving that, yes, people actually did “want ta hear that s***.”

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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