OCTOBER 16, 1961 – Decca records released “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. When she’d recorded it on August 21st, Cline had difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs (she was also still on crutches) sustained after going through a car windshield in a head-on collision two months earlier on June 14th when she and her brother Sam were involved in a head-on collision on Old Hickory Boulevard in Nashville, Tennessee. The impact threw Cline into the windshield, nearly killing her.
The two passengers in the other car both died. Upon arriving at the scene, Dottie West picked glass from Cline’s hair, and went with her in the ambulance.The ballad, composed by Willie Nelson, spent 21 weeks on the chart and eventually became one of her signature tunes, becoming a #2 country hit in 1962. Nelson originally wrote the song for country singer Billy Walker, but Walker turned it down. The song’s eventual success helped launch Nelson as a performer as well as a songwriter. On August 19, 1988, Cline’s version of “Crazy” and Elvis Presley’s version of “Hound Dog” were announced as the most played jukebox songs of the first hundred years.
LYRICS:
I’m crazy – crazy for feeling so lonely
I’m crazy – crazy for feeling so blue
I know you’d love me as long as you wanted
then someday leave me for somebody new
worry – why do I let myself worry
wondering what in the world did I do
crazy for thinking that my love could hold you
I’m crazy for crying
I’m crazy for trying
I’m crazy for loving you
