The Bitter End

Ever hear or read a story that you knew would end badly from the first line, yet you were unable to turn away until you had absorbed every last, brutal word of it?

Alan Paton’s book, Too Late the Phalarope, was like that for me, as is this song by Porter Wagoner.

Wagoner might as well be reading the phone book, albeit with the tiniest tremor in his voice, and that’s a masterful choice on his part. This is the sort of song you want to under-sing, so the story can tell itself.

Here’s Porter Wagoner with “The Cold, Hard Facts Of LIfe”.