Crying, Waiting, Hoping

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Crying, Waiting, Hoping” is a song written by Buddy Holly. It was released in 1959 as the B-side to “Peggy Sue Got Married“. Three versions of Holly’s recording were released: the 1959 commercial release, the 1964 reissue with different orchestration, and Holly’s original, private home recording.

Recordings

The song was first recorded on December 14, 1958 by Holly (only himself with guitar) in apartment 4H of “The Brevoort”, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (many other sources say apartment 3B). After Holly’s death on February 3, 1959, his home recordings of his last six compositions were turned over to record producer Jack Hansen. Hansen hired studio musicians and a backup vocal group, the Ray Charles Singers, to augment Holly’s vocal and guitar. The idea was to match the established sound of Buddy Holly and the Crickets as closely as possible.

“Crying, Waiting, Hoping” is technically the most successful of the six overdubs; it turned out so well that it was originally intended as the “A” side of a 45-rpm single. Holly wrote and recorded the song with pauses (“Cryin’… waitin’… hopin’… you’ll come back“). Hansen ingeniously turned the solo into call-and-response verses, so the backup singers fill in the pauses with an “echo” of each word. (For a German reissue of this song, the producer took the “echo” idea literally, and played the Hansen recording in an echo chamber.)

Hansen’s studio version of “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” was recorded on June 30, 1959 at Coral Records’ Studio A, along with “Peggy Sue Got Married“. Both sides were released as Buddy Holly’s first posthumous single. (The remaining four tunes on Holly’s tape were re-recorded by Hansen and company in 1960. All six were issued on an album, The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2.) […]

The Beatles version

The Beatles recorded the song live on 16 July 1963 for the Pop Go The Beatles radio show. The BBC recording features George Harrison on lead vocal and also features Harrison replicating studio guitarist Donald Arnone’s instrumental bridge, note for note.

While the version on Live at the BBC is the only officially released version by the group, they also performed the song during their failed Decca audition on 1 January 1962. […]

Last updated on November 30, 2016

Lyrics