Country Music

Classic Country Music Hits

Country Music

George Jones – Playing Possum

“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.”
Introduction

“Playing Possum” feels like a whispered confession from a heart steeped in memories. It’s a song that walks the fine line between tribute and longing, effortlessly evoking the essence of country music legend George Jones. Through its poignant lyrics and soulful melody, this track captures the reverence we hold for artists who leave an indelible mark on our lives.

The title itself is a clever nod to George Jones’ nickname, “The Possum,” blending humor with a sense of admiration. As the song unfolds, it feels like a conversation with an old friend, reminiscing about the way Jones’ music could cut straight to the soul. Whether it’s his mournful ballads or honky-tonk anthems, Jones’ legacy becomes the emotional anchor of “Playing Possum,” making it a heartfelt ode to the power of storytelling in country music.

Listening to this song is like flipping through an old scrapbook—each note, each word, pulls out memories that feel personal, even if they’re borrowed. It’s a love letter to the music that shaped a generation, wrapped in warmth and nostalgia. With its thoughtful homage and deep emotional resonance, “Playing Possum” reminds us why we hold certain artists close to our hearts, even long after they’re gone

Video

Lyrics

Well, you didn’t think I knew that you’d been cheatin’ on me
You thought that I was stayin’ home while you went on a spree
But I’ve been staying outta sight and I see the things you do
I’ve been playin’ possum, I’ve been a-watchin’ you
Playin’ possum, (playin’ possum,) a-watchin’ you
Seein’ you do all those thing that I know you shouldn’t do
But I’ll keep hanging on because my love for you is true
I’ll keep playing possum and keep on loving you
— Instrumental —
Last night I climbed up in a tree a-just outside his house
And I saw him a-chasing you, a-playing cat and mouse
Then I crawled up and went on home I didn’t know what to do
I’ve been a-playing possum, yes I’ve been a-watching you
Playin’ possum, (playin’ possum,) watchin’ you
Seein’ you do all those thing that I know you shouldn’t do
But I’ll keep hanging on because my love for you is true
I’ll keep playing possum and keep on loving you
— Instrumental —
I’m a-playin’ possum, (playin’ possum,) a-watchin’ you
Seein’ you do all those thing that I know you shouldn’t do
But I’ll keep hanging on because my love for you is true
And I’ll keep playing possum and keep on loving you
Yeah, I’ll keep playing possum and keep on loving you…

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GEORGE JONES NEARLY DIED IN A 1999 CAR CRASH. MONTHS LATER, HE RECORDED “CHOICES”—A SONG HE DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO SING—AND IT BECAME ONE OF THE MOST PERSONAL RECORDS OF HIS LIFE. By the late 1990s, George Jones had already survived almost everything country music could throw at a man. The hits, the drinking, the missed shows, the marriages, the comeback attempts—all of it had become part of the legend. But by 1998, commercial momentum had slowed, and Jones was no longer treated by mainstream country radio as an automatic presence. Then, on March 6, 1999, he crashed his Lexus near his home in Franklin, Tennessee. Jones was seriously injured. The wreck left him with a ruptured liver, internal bleeding, and other injuries that required emergency treatment. Investigators later determined he had been drinking before the crash. For a man who had spent years trying to put alcohol behind him, the accident was a brutal public relapse. During recovery, Jones was presented with “Choices,” written by Billy Yates and Mike Curtis. He resisted it. The lyric was too close: a man looking back at the decisions that had shaped his life, admitting that consequences did not arrive by accident. Jones reportedly felt uncomfortable singing something that sounded so autobiographical. He recorded it anyway. Released later in 1999, “Choices” became one of the strongest late-career records Jones ever made. It won the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and reintroduced him to an audience that had begun treating him more like history than a current artist. Then came the CMA Awards. Jones was invited to perform “Choices,” but the broadcast reportedly offered him only a shortened version of the song. He declined to appear. Alan Jackson was on the show that night. During his own performance of “Pop a Top,” Jackson suddenly stopped his band, turned toward “Choices,” and sang part of Jones’s song instead—an unscripted gesture of protest on live television. The room understood immediately. Jones had spent much of his career being treated as the man who could not get out of his own way. In 1999, one of the youngest stars on country television stopped his own song to make sure the older man’s voice was heard.

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DON RICH SPENT 16 YEARS HELPING BUILD THE BUCK OWENS SOUND. THEN A MOTORCYCLE CRASH KILLED HIM AT 32 —AND BUCK LATER SAID PART OF THE JOY WENT OUT OF MUSIC WITH HIM. By 1974, Buck Owens had already spent years near the top of country music. The Buckaroos had helped define the Bakersfield sound, and Don Rich was central to it. He had first met Buck in the late 1950s, then became guitarist, fiddler, bandleader and the high harmony voice heard on many of Buck’s biggest records. The Country Music Hall of Fame calls their partnership crucial to Owens’s career. Then the partnership ended in a single night. On July 17, 1974, Rich was riding his motorcycle when he was killed in a crash. He was only 32. Buck kept working. Hee Haw continued. The business empire continued. There were still records, shows and radio interests to manage. But the musical center had changed. Rich had not simply been another replaceable player in the Buckaroos. His guitar lines and harmony singing were built into the identity of songs such as “Act Naturally,” “Together Again,” “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” and “Sam’s Place.” During Buck’s peak years, Owens and Rich had worked with essentially the same road band in the studio, which gave the records their unusually tight, live sound. After Rich’s death, Buck’s chart dominance faded during the second half of the 1970s. There were other reasons: changing country tastes, the demands of television and Buck’s growing business interests. But Owens himself never treated Don’s death as just another personnel change. Years later, when Buck was thinking about where he wanted to be buried, he talked about moving Don Rich’s grave near his own family plot. “He’d want to be with me,” Buck said. That detail says more about their relationship than any list of records. Don Rich had spent 16 years standing beside Buck Owens onstage. More than two decades after the crash, Buck was still thinking about where he wanted Don standing when the music was over.

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CONWAY TWITTY AND LORETTA LYNN WERE ALREADY MAJOR SOLO STARS WHEN THEY STARTED SINGING TOGETHER. THEIR FIRST DUET WENT TO No. 1 — AND THE CHEMISTRY BECAME SO CONVINCING THAT FANS SPENT YEARS WONDERING WHETHER THE LOVE SONGS WERE REAL. By 1971, neither Conway Twitty nor Loretta Lynn needed a duet partner. Loretta had already built a run of major hits and was one of country music’s strongest female stars. Conway had completed his move from pop into country and was stacking up No. 1 records of his own. Putting them together was not a rescue plan for either career. It was an experiment. Their first major release as a duo was “After the Fire Is Gone,” a song built around two married people finding something in each other that had disappeared at home. The voices fit almost immediately. Loretta’s sharp, plainspoken delivery pushed against Conway’s smoother, heavier phrasing. Instead of sounding like two stars politely sharing a record, they sounded like two people in the middle of the argument the song described. “After the Fire Is Gone” went to No. 1 in 1971 and later earned them a Grammy. So they kept going. “Lead Me On” followed. Then came “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” “As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone,” “Feelin’s” and others. The partnership became so successful that Conway and Loretta won the CMA’s Vocal Duo of the Year award four consecutive times from 1972 through 1975. But the records created another problem. People believed them. Onstage, Conway and Loretta could lean into a lyric, trade looks and deliver a cheating song with enough tension that audiences began assuming something must be happening away from the microphones too. Loretta repeatedly dismissed the idea. Her marriage to Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn was famously complicated, but Conway was a close friend, not a secret lover. The two families knew each other, and Doo himself was part of the world around their touring and recording partnership. That did not stop the rumors. In a strange way, the misunderstanding became proof of what made the duo work. Country audiences were hearing two experienced solo singers who knew how to make every line sound personal — even when the story belonged only to the song. They eventually recorded together for more than a decade, even as both continued successful solo careers. When Conway died suddenly in 1993, Loretta lost more than an old duet partner. She lost the one singer whose voice had spent years sitting directly across from hers. The records remained convincing enough that decades later, new listeners could still hear “After the Fire Is Gone” without needing to know where the performance ended and the friendship began.

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Country Music

DON RICH SPENT 16 YEARS HELPING BUILD THE BUCK OWENS SOUND. THEN A MOTORCYCLE CRASH KILLED HIM AT 32 —AND BUCK LATER SAID PART OF THE JOY WENT OUT OF MUSIC WITH HIM. By 1974, Buck Owens had already spent years near the top of country music. The Buckaroos had helped define the Bakersfield sound, and Don Rich was central to it. He had first met Buck in the late 1950s, then became guitarist, fiddler, bandleader and the high harmony voice heard on many of Buck’s biggest records. The Country Music Hall of Fame calls their partnership crucial to Owens’s career. Then the partnership ended in a single night. On July 17, 1974, Rich was riding his motorcycle when he was killed in a crash. He was only 32. Buck kept working. Hee Haw continued. The business empire continued. There were still records, shows and radio interests to manage. But the musical center had changed. Rich had not simply been another replaceable player in the Buckaroos. His guitar lines and harmony singing were built into the identity of songs such as “Act Naturally,” “Together Again,” “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” and “Sam’s Place.” During Buck’s peak years, Owens and Rich had worked with essentially the same road band in the studio, which gave the records their unusually tight, live sound. After Rich’s death, Buck’s chart dominance faded during the second half of the 1970s. There were other reasons: changing country tastes, the demands of television and Buck’s growing business interests. But Owens himself never treated Don’s death as just another personnel change. Years later, when Buck was thinking about where he wanted to be buried, he talked about moving Don Rich’s grave near his own family plot. “He’d want to be with me,” Buck said. That detail says more about their relationship than any list of records. Don Rich had spent 16 years standing beside Buck Owens onstage. More than two decades after the crash, Buck was still thinking about where he wanted Don standing when the music was over.

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CONWAY TWITTY AND LORETTA LYNN WERE ALREADY MAJOR SOLO STARS WHEN THEY STARTED SINGING TOGETHER. THEIR FIRST DUET WENT TO No. 1 — AND THE CHEMISTRY BECAME SO CONVINCING THAT FANS SPENT YEARS WONDERING WHETHER THE LOVE SONGS WERE REAL. By 1971, neither Conway Twitty nor Loretta Lynn needed a duet partner. Loretta had already built a run of major hits and was one of country music’s strongest female stars. Conway had completed his move from pop into country and was stacking up No. 1 records of his own. Putting them together was not a rescue plan for either career. It was an experiment. Their first major release as a duo was “After the Fire Is Gone,” a song built around two married people finding something in each other that had disappeared at home. The voices fit almost immediately. Loretta’s sharp, plainspoken delivery pushed against Conway’s smoother, heavier phrasing. Instead of sounding like two stars politely sharing a record, they sounded like two people in the middle of the argument the song described. “After the Fire Is Gone” went to No. 1 in 1971 and later earned them a Grammy. So they kept going. “Lead Me On” followed. Then came “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” “As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone,” “Feelin’s” and others. The partnership became so successful that Conway and Loretta won the CMA’s Vocal Duo of the Year award four consecutive times from 1972 through 1975. But the records created another problem. People believed them. Onstage, Conway and Loretta could lean into a lyric, trade looks and deliver a cheating song with enough tension that audiences began assuming something must be happening away from the microphones too. Loretta repeatedly dismissed the idea. Her marriage to Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn was famously complicated, but Conway was a close friend, not a secret lover. The two families knew each other, and Doo himself was part of the world around their touring and recording partnership. That did not stop the rumors. In a strange way, the misunderstanding became proof of what made the duo work. Country audiences were hearing two experienced solo singers who knew how to make every line sound personal — even when the story belonged only to the song. They eventually recorded together for more than a decade, even as both continued successful solo careers. When Conway died suddenly in 1993, Loretta lost more than an old duet partner. She lost the one singer whose voice had spent years sitting directly across from hers. The records remained convincing enough that decades later, new listeners could still hear “After the Fire Is Gone” without needing to know where the performance ended and the friendship began.

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