“Making Believe” by Kitty Wells
Making believe
That you still love me
It’s leaving me alone and so blue
Still I’ll always dream
But I’ll never own you
Making believe
It’s all I can do
Can’t hold you close
When you’re not with me
You’re somebody’s love
You’ll never be mine
Making believe I’ll spend my lifetime
Loving you and making believe
Imagine you have just woken up from a dream… smiling, in love, and in vanilla sky mood. You stretch out, greeting the sun and hit snooze for the fourth time. You open your eyes, look around, and suddenly, it hits you. It was just a dream. Well, that is what the track “Making Believe” wants you to feel.
The song shares a story of a woman who does not want to get over her former lover. In her daydreams, she is still madly in love with her ex, knowing that they will never ever get back together again.
“Making Believe” is a composition by country musician Jimmy Work. In 1955, Kitty Wells recorded a chart-topping version. Being famous, the song is on many lists of all-time greatest country music songs. In addition, over the past 50 years, artists including Thorleifs, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell, Wanda Jackson, Connie Francis, Ray Charles, Anita Carter, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, Social Distortion, Skeeter Davis, The Haden Triplets and Volbeat have covered by scores of the track. Occasionally, people called the song “Makin’ Believe”.
In the year 1953, Kitty Wells gave herself a breakthrough as country music’s first genuine female star as a solo performer. This was due to her monster number 1 hit “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”. Ever since she had been cranking out a generous supply of Top Ten singles. Furthermore, she logged another number one, “One By One,” a duet with Red Foley.
Wells heard Jimmy Work’s recording of “Making Believe”. Eventually, she fell in love with the song and decided to release her own cover. This version of hers landed on Billboard’s country charts about a month after Work’s. Kitty’s rendition quickly soared to number 2, but it stayed for an incredible 15 weeks. She was unable to slip past Webb Pierce’s reign of 21 weeks at the top with his cover of Jimmie Rodgers’ “In The Jailhouse Now.” Wells’ version of this song is the third biggest hit in country music history. With its fifteen weeks at number 2, Kitty Wells’ “Making Believe” still holds the all-time record for a song in the runner-up position on any Billboard chart.
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kitty wells, making believe