About The Song
By the mid-1960s, Ray Price was already one of country music’s most dependable voices, moving steadily from hard honky-tonk into a smoother, more orchestrated sound without losing the emotional directness that had made him popular in the first place. Around that time, songwriter Hank Cochran brought him a song that fit perfectly into that transition. Cochran was known in Nashville for writing plainly, avoiding complicated language and relying instead on simple, direct lines drawn from everyday heartbreak. Fellow writers later recalled that he wrote fearlessly, putting uncomfortable truths into songs without trying to soften them, and that honesty made his material especially powerful in the hands of singers who knew how to deliver restraint rather than drama.
Price recorded the song for his 1965 album The Other Woman, during a period when his band, the Cherokee Cowboys, included some of the finest session players in country music. The sessions reflected how Nashville recording was changing at the time: traditional shuffle rhythms were still present, but arrangements were becoming more spacious, allowing the vocal to sit at the center. Price had already built a reputation for choosing outside material and making it sound as if it had always belonged to him, and this recording followed that pattern. The song itself was not written as a personal statement by Price, yet listeners often assumed it was because of how naturally it fit his delivery.
Behind the scenes, Cochran’s songwriting circle overlapped heavily with the same musicians and writers Price worked with, which helped songs move quickly through Nashville’s informal network. Stories from the era describe writers playing new material late at night around publishing offices or clubs like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, where songs were often tested in conversation before ever reaching a studio. Cochran’s work tended to circulate this way, passed from one singer to another until the right voice appeared. In this case, Price’s calm phrasing and controlled tone turned what could have been a dramatic lament into something quieter and more resigned, which matched the changing direction of country radio at the time.
The recording became one of Price’s notable mid-sixties hits, reaching the country charts and reinforcing his standing during a decade when many earlier honky-tonk artists struggled to adapt. It also proved durable beyond its initial release. Years later, Price revisited the song as a duet with Willie Nelson, and other artists recorded their own versions, including Ronnie Milsap, whose later interpretation reached number one on the country charts. That long life says as much about the songwriting as it does about Price’s original recording: the idea at its core was simple enough to survive changing styles and generations.
Looking back, the song sits at an interesting point in Ray Price’s career. He was no longer the young Texas singer redefining dancehall country, but he had not yet fully moved into the lush countrypolitan sound that would define some of his later work. Instead, this recording captures a balance between those worlds. The band plays with restraint, the arrangement leaves space, and Price delivers the lines without excess. It reflects a moment in Nashville when country music was learning how to sound more polished without losing the emotional plainness that listeners expected.
Video
Lyric
You make my eyes run over all the time
You’re happy when I’m out of my mind
You don’t love me but you won’t let me be
Don’t you ever get tired of hurting meYou must think I look bad with a smile
For you haven’t let me wear one in such a long, long while
Still I keep running back, why must this be
Don’t you ever get tired of hurting meSomeone must have hurt you long, long ago
But why take revenge on one who loves you so
You won’t love me and you won’t set me free
Don’t you ever get tired of hurting meYou must think I look bad with a smile
For you haven’t let me wear one in such a long, long while
Still I keep running back, how can this be
Don’t you ever get tired of hurting me