Singing The Blues

Song facts

“Singing The Blues” is a song from 1956, recorded and released by Paul McCartney on his 1991 Unplugged album. From Wikipedia:

“Singing the Blues” is a popular song written by Melvin Endsley and published in 1956. The song was first recorded and released by Marty Robbins in 1956. […]

Guy Mitchell

The best-known recording was released in October 1956 by Guy Mitchell and spent ten weeks at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard chart from December 8, 1956, to February 2, 1957. An example of the U.S. recording is on Columbia #40769, dated 1956, with the Ray Conniff Orchestra. Mitchell’s version was also number 1 in the UK Singles Chart for three (non-consecutive) weeks in early 1957, one of only four singles to rise to number 1 on three separate occasions, with the other three being “I Believe” by Frankie Laine, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams and “What Do You Mean?” by Justin Bieber.

Marty Robbins and Tommy Steele versions

Two other charting versions of the song were released almost simultaneously with Mitchell’s, one by the English singer Tommy Steele (with the Steelmen) and the other (recorded before Mitchell covered it) by US country singer Marty Robbins.

Tommy Steele’s version of “Singing the Blues” made number 1 in the UK Singles Chart for one week on 11 January 1957, sandwiched by two of the weeks that Guy Mitchell’s version of the same song topped the charts. Steele’s recording of the song was not a chart success in the US. […]

To me it’s Guy Mitchell and Tommy Steele, even though there’s been a more recent hit. It’s a very simple song to do, one of the ones I’d sing to the kids.

I recently met Jonathan Routh when I was on holiday in Jamaica – he used to be the Candid Camera man – and he paints now, lives in a place without electricity, and he takes in all the local kids, like an orphanage. We were sitting around his kitchen table and I was tuning his cook’s guitar, so – being left-handed – I turned it upside down. You have to play simple songs if it’s upside down, and I started playing ‘Singing The Blues’ and Jonathan said to all the little kids, ‘Now you listen to this! This is a good one!’, because it excited him from the Tommy Steele period. That really pleased me. I thought, yes, this is an important song in our lives.

Paul McCartney, from Club Sandwich 58, Summer 1991

In the days when the British media liked nothing more than to contrive “pop” rivalries, Guy Mitchell’s US recording and Tommy Steele and the Steelmen’s chirpy homegrown cover of “Singing The Blue” were pitched against each other in January 1957 and, ultimately, both took the song to number one. (In the US, the “battle” was between Mitchell and Marty Robbins, both correctly accentuating the tune’s country feel, as written by Melvin Endsley.) Other versions have followed, from Burl Ives to Johnny Burnette, the Mills Brothers to Jerry Lee Lewis, and Dave Edmunds (a 1980 UK hit) to this first release of the song by Paul McCartney.

From Unplugged liner notes

Last updated on July 8, 2019

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