About The Song
“Women Do Know How to Carry On” is a country song co-written and recorded by Waylon Jennings. Writing credit is given to Waylon Jennings and Bobby Emmons. The track was included on the studio album Black on Black, released by RCA Victor in February 1982, and later issued as a single on RCA Nashville. Album running time listings give the track length at roughly 3 minutes 16–18 seconds, depending on source.
Recording for “Women Do Know How to Carry On” took place at Moman’s Studio in Nashville during the sessions for Black on Black. Chips Moman is credited as producer of the album and of this track. The album sessions are documented as part of Jennings’ early-1980s period, when he was working regularly with Moman in Nashville on projects that mixed straight country with elements of the outlaw sound he had developed in the 1970s.
The song was released as a single on June 26, 1982, identified in discographies as the third single taken from Black on Black. The 7-inch single pairs “Women Do Know How to Carry On” on the A-side with “Honky Tonk Blues” on the B-side. Label information cites RCA Nashville as the issuing imprint, with genre listed simply as country and the same 3:18 length as the LP cut.
Within the album sequence, “Women Do Know How to Carry On” is placed as the opening track on Side A on standard U.S. vinyl pressings, followed by “Honky Tonk Blues” and the duet version of “Just to Satisfy You” with Willie Nelson. The track is also carried forward into later reissues and two-fers that combine Black on Black with other Jennings albums, where it retains the original writer, length, and production credits.
Chart performance data show that the single reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in 1982. On the Canadian RPM Country Tracks survey it peaked at No. 6. These chart positions place the song among Jennings’ Top 10 country hits of the early 1980s and one of three Top 5 singles drawn from Black on Black, along with “Just to Satisfy You” and “Shine.”
In later catalog activity, “Women Do Know How to Carry On” was included on the 1984 compilation Waylon’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, where it appears in the track list alongside “Shine” and other songs from the same period. It also appears on the multi-label retrospective box set Nashville Rebel released in 2006, which documents Jennings’ career from the late 1950s through the mid-1990s and again credits Jennings and Emmons as the writers.
Streaming and digital music services list the track under the Black on Black album and on various greatest-hits collections, using the 1982 release date and the standard 3:16–3:18 timing. These entries maintain the same core metadata found in physical discographies: writers Waylon Jennings and Bobby Emmons, producer Chips Moman, album Black on Black, label RCA, and original single release in June 1982 with a highest chart position of No. 4 on U.S. country radio.
Video
Lyric
Women do know how to carry on
Well there won’t be too much cryin’ time alone
They’ll be right back puttin’ me and make up on
Women do know how to carry on
When she can’t keep love afloat she will survive
In her soft and sexy way she’s gonna shuck and jive
Wipe the tears and find the things that she needs to get along
Women do know how to carry on women do know how to carry on yeah
[ guitar ]
Never knew a man who could take a fall
They’ll land right on their pride and then they waste it all
But even when the best she’s ever had is gone
Women do know how to carry on
Women do know how to carry on…
Women do know how to carry on
[ guitar ]
They’ll be right back puttin’ me and make up on
[ guitar ]
There won’t be too much cryin’ time alone
They’ll be right back puttin’ me and make up on
Women do know how to carry on