Hank Williams – Weary Blues from Waitin’

“Weary Blues from Waitin'” is a song written by Hank Williams and released posthumously as a single on MGM Records in 1953. Copyright records list it as being published by Acuff-Rose on November 28, 1951, indicating that the composition was completed and registered while Williams was still alive. The commercially issued version runs about two minutes and thirty seconds and is generally classified as a country and blues ballad. The 78 rpm single was issued as MGM 11574, paired with “I Can’t Escape from You” on the flip side, and credited to Hank Williams with His Drifting Cowboys.

The recording history of the song is more complex than a standard studio master. Sources indicate that Williams originally cut “Weary Blues from Waitin'” as a solo demo, probably in 1951, with just voice and guitar. After his death on January 1, 1953, MGM and producer Fred Rose began preparing a series of overdubbed releases using surviving demos. For this title, members of Williams’s former backing group, the Drifting Cowboys—by then largely working with Ray Price—were brought into the studio to add steel guitar, fiddle, bass and additional guitars to the existing vocal-and-guitar track. The resulting composite was issued as the commercial single, while the undubbed demo has appeared on later archival releases.

The single arrived during a period when Williams’s posthumous popularity was surging. In the months immediately following his death, MGM issued several singles and LPs that generated strong sales, and 1953 saw four posthumous No. 1 country hits followed by additional Top 10 entries. Within this sequence, “Weary Blues from Waitin'” was released on July 8, 1953 and reached No. 7 on the U.S. Billboard country singles chart, extending the run of successful releases drawn from the remaining unreleased material. Company and press accounts from the time describe Williams’s back catalogue as selling in unprecedented quantities in the early 1950s.

Lyrically, the song is a slow, reflective blues about emotional exhaustion. The narrator describes sitting alone with his “weary blues,” waiting for a lover who does not return. The imagery focuses on time passing, sleepless nights and a sense of resignation rather than anger, fitting with Williams’s broader catalogue of heartbreak songs. The lines are concise and repetitive, built around the central phrase “weary blues from waitin’,” which functions as both title and thematic summary. This economy of language is characteristic of Williams’s writing style in his ballads.

Musically, “Weary Blues from Waitin'” is a moderate-tempo country blues in a 4/4 feel. The overdubbed Drifting Cowboys arrangement uses a restrained rhythm section with acoustic guitar and bass, complemented by steel guitar and fiddle that provide short, supportive fills around the vocal. The texture remains relatively sparse, preserving the intimate quality of the original demo. Commentators have noted that the overdubs are more subtle than on some later posthumous releases, where strings and heavier arrangements were added to Williams masters; in this case, the instrumentation is consistent with his early-1950s studio sound.

Questions about authorship have been raised by some historians. While the copyright and label credit list Hank Williams as the sole writer, biographical sources report that Ray Price may have contributed to the song’s development. Accounts suggest that the two singers discussed and worked on the song during a car journey from a Grand Ole Opry appearance to a show in Evansville, Indiana in September 1951, and Price recorded his own version for Columbia later that year. These reports have not altered the formal attribution, but they illustrate the collaborative environment around Williams in the early 1950s.

Over the years, “Weary Blues from Waitin'” has become a standard within the Williams repertoire and beyond. It has been included on major compilations such as 40 Greatest Hits, The Ultimate Collection and other retrospective sets that focus on his late-period ballads and posthumous singles. The song has also attracted a wide range of cover versions: Ray Price, Ronnie Hawkins, Del Shannon, Wanda Jackson, Duane Eddy, Hank Williams Jr., Steve Goodman, Madeleine Peyroux and the British band The The, among others, have recorded it in country, rock, pop and jazz settings. These interpretations, together with continued reissues of the original recording and its undubbed demo, have helped keep “Weary Blues from Waitin'” in circulation as one of the notable examples of Williams’s blending of country and blues elements in the early 1950s.