About The Song
"City Lights" was one of Anderson's earliest major successes. He wrote the song when he was just 19, and it was picked up by Price in the spring of 1958, when Price was country music's predominant honky-tonk singer and stylist.
According to country music historian Bill Malone, "City Lights" depicts personal isolation and "the estrangement of the individual in a world of urban anonymity." Price's "hard, lonesome vocal" and Texas shuffle beat (the styling hallmarks of his recordings from the mid-1950s through early 1960s) were prominent in his rendition.
Released in June 1958, Price's version of "City Lights" stalled at #2 on the Billboard magazine Most Played C&W by Disc Jockeys chart later that summer. When Billboard introduced its all-encompassing chart for country music (called "Hot C&W Sides") on October 20, "City Lights" was the new chart's first #1 song. It remained atop the chart for 13 weeks, its last week being January 12, 1959. The song spent a total of 34 weeks on the chart.
Ivory Joe Hunter recorded this song in 1959 during his shift to country late in his career and his version peaked at #92 on the US Billboard charts. Debbie Reynolds also recorded in 1960 and peaked at #55 on pop charts.
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Famous quotes containing the word song:
“Lest all the song notes
pause and break
across a blood-stained throat
gone songless,
turn back.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)