1955 Top Ten Songs: When I Stop Dreaming (#2)

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So many of the songs on my 100 favorites lists came from 1955 that I now find them competing against one another in this list of songs that turn 70 this year. It’s hard to say that this “loses” to the song I picked for #1, because they both give me goosebumps. That’s known as frisson, in case you’re wondering (or even if you aren’t!). So here’s today’s “Linda? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!” song. #2: When I Stop Dreaming - Louvin Brothers And I say it every time I bring this song up: all you wanna-be people, I don’t care HOW good a singer you are, stop covering this song. I would love to meet Don Henley, one of my all-time favorite singers (as you probably know), and ask him, “Don, what in the hell were you thinking of when you decided to cover ‘When I Stop Dreaming’?” I’m guessing that he learned this song from Emmylou Harris’ equally “what in the hell were you thinking” awful version. I’m pretty sure that a vast majority of the covers originate with Emmylou, NOT with the Louvin Brothers. How can I tell? Same way that I can tell about “City of New Orleans.” That “weird chord” with the line “I’ll be gone 500 miles” originated with Arlo Guthrie’s cover. It’s NOT in Steve Goodman’s original. By the same token, Harris’ cover of “When I Stop Dreaming” cut the middle verse out (“I’d be like a flower…”) and slowed the tempo down to the point where a dirge is more upbeat. All of the versions since Harris did the song on Luxury Liner followed suit. Y’all can’t fool a Louvin Brothers fan. The Louvins were signed to Capitol as a gospel act, and in the mid-50s gospel was selling less. The Louvins, who’d already written some country songs (“Bald Knob, Arkansas” by Roy Acuff, for instance), decided they wanted to get in on the “secular” side of the ledger. Their record label agreed, with a warning: fail, and you’re off the label. In short, their career was pinned to one song: this one. Fast-forward to 2001 and the Louvins were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, a good indication that they did NOT fail. When I Stop Dreaming Written by Ira and Charlie Louvin Recorded by the Louvin Brothers Released as a single, 1955 In the shadows of undying pain: