About The Song
“Cryin’ Time” is a country ballad written by Buck Owens and first recorded by him in the mid-1960s, just as he was becoming a dominant figure of the Bakersfield sound. His studio version was cut at Capitol Records’ Hollywood studio with producer Ken Nelson and the Buckaroos, and released in late 1964 on Capitol as the B-side of the single “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail.” The track runs a little over two minutes and was soon folded into his 1965 album I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail, where it provided one of the set’s most downbeat moments.
Even though it technically started life as a B-side, “Cryin’ Time” quickly took on a life of its own. Country discographies note that radio programmers flipped the single and began giving the song airplay alongside the hit A-side. As a result, it registered on the U.S. country charts in its own right, giving Owens an additional mid-1960s entry and reinforcing his reputation as a songwriter capable of pairing bright, up-tempo numbers with stark, slow ballads. The song’s simple structure and memorable hook also made it immediately attractive to other artists looking for strong material.
The recording sits squarely in the classic Bakersfield style. Owens sings in a relaxed but slightly nasal tone, right on top of a small, hard-driving band. Don Rich’s guitar and/or fiddle plays short, clean fills between vocal lines, while steel guitar adds a mournful colour that fits the lyric. The rhythm section keeps to a gentle shuffle rather than the full “freight-train” drive of Owens’ faster hits, but the sound is still lean: no strings, no chorus singers, and none of the heavy reverb and orchestration common on Nashville productions of the same period. That stripped-down approach leaves the focus on the melody and the words.
Lyrically, “Cryin’ Time” is one of Owens’ clearest and most concise breakup songs. The narrator addresses a partner who has not yet left, but whose behaviour makes the outcome obvious. He notices the change in her eyes, the way she no longer laughs at his jokes, the suitcases being packed, and concludes, “Oh, it’s cryin’ time again, you’re gonna leave me.” The song never explains exactly what went wrong; instead, it concentrates on the resigned feeling of someone who recognises the familiar signs of a relationship ending and knows there is little he can do to stop it.
Within Buck Owens’ own catalogue, the song has remained closely associated with the I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail era. It appears on numerous compilations of his 1960s Capitol work and on box sets that collect the complete singles from that period. Live recordings and television clips from the mid-1960s show Owens and the Buckaroos performing “Cryin’ Time” alongside hits like “Together Again,” underlining how naturally it fit into their stage set as the slow, reflective counterpart to the more raucous Bakersfield shuffles.
Ironically, the song achieved its greatest commercial success in another genre. Ray Charles recorded a soulful version in 1965, releasing it as a single that became a major pop and R&B hit in 1966 and earned multiple Grammy Awards. Charles kept Owens’ basic lyric and structure but transformed the arrangement with piano, horns and gospel-styled backing vocals. His success brought wide attention to Owens’ composition and ensured that “Cryin’ Time” would be recognised far beyond the country audience, even though Buck’s own version remained rooted in the Bakersfield sound.
Over the decades, “Cryin’ Time” has been covered by a wide range of artists, from traditional country singers to pop and soul performers, each bringing their own shading to its simple melody and plain-spoken lyric. For Buck Owens, the song stands as proof of his strength as a writer as well as a bandleader: a compact ballad built from everyday language and a handful of chords, capable of working in a bare-bones Bakersfield arrangement or in a lush soul setting. In that sense, it links his 1960s country peak with a much broader history of popular music, while remaining one of the key slow songs in his own body of work.
Video
Lyric
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Oh, it’s crying time again, you’re gonna leave me
I can see that faraway look in your eye
I can tell by the way you hold me, darlin’
That it won’t be long before it’s crying timeNow they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder
And that tears are only rain to make love grow
Well, my love for you could never grow no stronger
If I lived to be a hundred years oldOh, it’s crying time again, you’re gonna leave me
I can see that faraway look in your eye
I can tell by the way you hold me, darlin’
That it won’t be long before it’s crying timeNow you say that you found someone you love better
That’s the way it’s happened every time before
And as sure as the sun comes up tomorrow
Crying time will start when you walk out the doorOh, it’s crying time again, you’re gonna leave me
I can see that faraway look in your eye
I can tell by the way you hold me, darlin’
That it won’t be long before it’s crying time