My Top Ten Hank Songs: Lost Highway (#2)

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It's time for another song from the great, great, great Hank Williams. If you study anything about country music his name is going to come up within five paragraphs. (And if it doesn't, throw the book away.) Here's the penultimate song on my list of favorites. #2: Lost Highway This song is indelibly linked with Hank. It's the name of a play about his life and one of the many books about him. And Hank didn't even write it. Go figure. This was written by Leon Payne, a name you're probably familiar with if you read my series on Jim Reeves (he wrote, among others, my favorite Reeves song, "Blue Side of Lonesome"). Not necessarily a religious song (despite the use of the term "road of sin"), it's more of a plea and a warning, as outlined in the final verse: "Now, boys, don't start to ramblin' around on this road of sin or you're sorrow bound." Hank delivered this song with such conviction...probably because he went "roaming down that lost highway" more than once, culminating with his death at the way-too-young age of 29. Lost Highway Written by Leon Payne Released as a single, 1949 Here's a live version where Hank sang the song at a slower pace than the recorded version, which makes it even more haunting: