Happy New YEAR Top Ten: Tender Years (#2)

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As we prepare to close down the first week of the new year I’m almost finished with the countdown of my favorite songs with the word “year” in the title. For today’s penultimate pick, I had to flip a coin: love or heartbreak. Love won the toss. Here’s today’s song. #2: Tender Years - George Jones The “losing” song for this spot is also a song by the Possum, “A Good Year for the Roses,” about a man watching his wife leave a broken home, with the only impressions on the man are the baby’s crying and “it’s been a good year for the roses, many blooms still linger there.” Elvis Costello covered the song on his Almost Blue album, and did a fine job of it. But here is the flip side of country music (if you didn’t know country could do something other than heartache): one of Jones’ best love songs. From relatively early in Jones’ career (1961....remember, he started in the mid-50s and was still going up until his death in 2013!), this song, which Jones co-wrote, is a stunner. It tells of a man whose devotion is so strong that he’ll gladly wait until the love of his life makes her mistakes and is ready to settle down. Yeah, that may seem sexist and hokey by today’s standards, but wow, is this a killer song. Jones was so good at doing fun songs (“White Lightnin’”) and heartbreak songs (“The Window Up Above” was released the same year as this song). He could deliver the goods on the love songs as well. That’s why he was the legend that he was. Tender Years Written by George Jones and Darrell Edwards Recorded by George Jones Released as a single, 1961 If I can’t be your first love I’ll wait and be your last: