About The Song
Ray Price’s “I’d Rather Be Sorry” was released as a single in 1971 on Columbia Records and was also used as the title track of his 1971 album I’d Rather Be Sorry. The song was written by Kris Kristofferson, which is an important detail because Price had already helped establish Kristofferson as a major songwriter on country radio through “For the Good Times.” That earlier hit had gone to No. 1 for Price, so recording another Kristofferson song was not a random choice. It placed Price in direct contact with the newer Nashville writing scene of the early 1970s while keeping him on mainstream country playlists.
On Billboard, “I’d Rather Be Sorry” reached No. 2 on the Hot Country Singles chart. That made it one of Price’s major country records from the period immediately after “For the Good Times” and “I Won’t Mention It Again.” In practical terms, the chart result showed that Price’s smoother Columbia-era sound was still commercially strong in 1971. By then he was no longer being marketed mainly through the harder dancehall material associated with his earlier years. This record belongs to the phase where his releases were built around polished Nashville production and adult country ballads that fit country radio programming of the time.
The song’s subject is straightforward. Its main line is a statement of preference: the speaker says he would rather accept the consequences of something he actually did than live with regret over something he failed to do. That idea gave the record a clear title hook, which mattered a lot in country singles of that era. The lyric is built around that single phrase and keeps returning to it, making the song easy for radio listeners to remember after one or two plays. It is a concise setup, and that likely helped the single work well commercially.
A useful side detail is how closely the song fits the Ray Price recording pattern of the early 1970s. Instead of relying only on older honky-tonk material or standards, he was regularly drawing from top contemporary songwriters. Kristofferson was one of the most important of them. So even though “I’d Rather Be Sorry” was a Ray Price hit, it also sits inside the broader story of how Nashville songwriting changed in that period. Price was one of the established singers who brought those newer songs to a large country audience.
The album connection is also relevant. Because the LP was titled I’d Rather Be Sorry, the single was clearly positioned as the centerpiece of that release rather than just another track. That was standard industry practice when a label believed a song could carry album sales as well as radio performance. In Ray Price’s case, the strategy worked: the single became a high-charting Billboard country record, the title was strong enough to headline an album, and the song took its place among the key Ray Price hits of the early 1970s.
Video
Lyric
If you hurt me you won’t be the first or the last
In a lifetime of many mistakes
But I won’t spend tomorrow regretting the past
For the chances that I didn’t take‘Cause I’ll never know
Till it’s over if I’m right or I’m wrong loving you
But I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done
Than for something that I didn’t doWhen you touch me, it’s easy to make me believe
Tomorrow won’t take you away
But I’ll gamble whatever tomorrow might bring
Of a love that I’m living today‘Cause I’ll never know till it’s over
If I’m right or I’m wrong loving you
But I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done
Than for something that I didn’t do