About The Song
The Statler Brothers recorded “Tomorrow Never Comes” for their 1970 album Bed of Rose’s, released on Mercury Records. The track appears as the ninth song on the album. Jerry Kennedy produced it. Sources list the album’s release around October or mid-December of that year. The song is a cover of a composition by Ernest Tubb and Johnny Bond. Tubb had recorded the original years earlier.
The album marked an important early chapter in the group’s Mercury years. It opened with the title track that became one of their signature hits and included other material that helped establish their sound after leaving Columbia. “Tomorrow Never Comes” sits among the deeper cuts, a quieter moment of classic country storytelling rather than a radio single. No major Billboard Hot Country Singles chart position is listed for the Statlers’ version.
The story is simple and familiar. A man listens to repeated promises. She tells him she loves him and that she cares. Tomorrow they will be married. But tomorrow never arrives. He has waited through many long nights and cried through many more, hoping for the morning when she would finally be by his side. The chorus returns to the same quiet conclusion: tomorrow never comes when he has her beside him. The waiting continues without resolution.
The song fits the traditional country style the group often reached for on album tracks during this period. It draws from the same well of everyday disappointment that Tubb had mined in his own work. The Statlers’ version keeps the focus on the plain words and the steady pace of the narrative. It later appeared on live recordings and compilations, including the 1989 live album Live and Sold Out, showing it remained part of their repertoire for years.
Bed of Rose’s itself reached the country album charts and helped solidify the group’s presence in the early 1970s. The title song drew most of the attention, but the album as a whole mixed original material with carefully chosen covers. “Tomorrow Never Comes” sits in that second category, a respectful take on a song already known to country listeners. Its presence on the record added another layer of classic country atmosphere without needing to compete for single status.
The track has continued to surface on later collections and in live settings. Fans who dig past the bigger hits often land on songs like this one, quiet reminders of the group’s ability to deliver a straightforward story without excess. In the context of Bed of Rose’s, it serves as a steady, unhurried pause between the more familiar numbers, a small window into the kind of material that rounded out their early Mercury work.
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Lyric
Oh, you tell me that you love me
And you tell me that you care
That tomorrow we’ll be married
But tomorrow’s never there
Oh, tomorrow never comes
No, tomorrow never comes
When I have you here beside me
Oh, tomorrow never comes
Many long nights I have waited
Many long nights I have cried
Just to see that happy mornin’
When I’ll have you by my side
Oh, tomorrow never comes
No, tomorrow never comes
When I have you here beside me
Oh no, tomorrow never comes
When I have you here beside me
Oh no, tomorrow never comes