Unveiling the Tale Behind George Jones’s “The Grand Tour”
“Step right up, come on in…”
With this beckoning phrase, George Jones extends an invitation through “The Grand Tour,” ushering us into the corridors of a house that once harbored countless personal memories. Even though the song was a creation of imagination, it carried a resonance. George Jones, known for his tumultuous marriage to Tammy Wynette and his bouts of revelry, often found his private life under the microscope of public scrutiny.
Nearly two decades prior, George had marked his initial substantial success a few years after his debut single’s release. The self-penned track “Why Baby Why” secured the fourth spot on Billboard’s chart in the latter part of 1955. Four years onward, Jones notched the first among his nine solo chart-toppers with J. P. Richardson’s “White Lightning.” Subsequent years in the 1960s saw three more chart-toppers: “Tender Years” in 1961, “She Thinks I Still Care” in ’62, and “Walk Through This World With Me” in January 1967. Yet, following this, George endured a seven-and-a-half-year span before once again reaching the pinnacle with “The Grand Tour” on August 31, 1974.
Esteemed by music critics as a “masterpiece on the theme of divorce” and an impeccable marriage of lyrics and performance, the song carried an uncanny realism as George and Tammy’s marriage crumbled just four months after the song’s zenith. George Jones’s rendition of “The Grand Tour” was hailed as one of his finest moments, regarded as producer Billy Sherrill’s watershed instance. After years of experimentation, Sherrill finally cracked the code of drawing out George’s resonant, deep-toned voice and seamlessly intertwining it with his signature “Sherrillized” production style. This alchemy continued to work wonders across several remarkable records through the rest of the ’70s, culminating in George’s magnum opus, “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” in 1980.
Both “The Grand Tour” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today” received the honor of being included in the Smithsonian Institution’s 1990 release, a collection titled “Classic Country Music: The Smithsonian Collection.” This compilation pays homage to recordings that have played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative of country music history.
Artist: George Jones
Album: The Best of George Jones
Released: 1975
Genre: Country
Lyrics
Step right up, come on in
If you’d like to take the grand tour
Of a lonely house that once was home sweet home
I have nothing here to sell you
Just some things that I will tell you
Some things I know will chill you to the bond
Over there, sits the chair
Where she’d bring the paper to me
And sit down on my knee
And whisper, “oh, I love you”
But now she’s gone forever
And this old house will never
Be the same without the love
That we once knew
Straight ahead, that’s the bed
Where we’d lay in love together
And Lord knows we had a good thing going here
See her picture on the table
Don’t it look like she’d be able
Just to touch me and say good morning dear
There’s her rings, all her things
And her clothes are in the closet
Like she left them
When she tore my world apart
As you leave you’ll see the nursery
Oh, she left me without mercy
Taking nothing but
Our baby and my heart
Step right up, come on in
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