Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes (song)

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"Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes"
Single by George Jones
from the album Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes
B-side"A Whole Lot of Trouble for You"[1]
ReleasedJune 8, 1985
GenreCountry
Length3:16
LabelEpic 05439
Songwriter(s)Max D. Barnes
Troy Seals
Producer(s)Billy Sherrill
George Jones singles chronology
"Size Seven Round (Made of Gold)"
(1985) 		"Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes"
(1985) 		"The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)"
(1986)

"Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" is a song written by

Hot Country Singles
chart.

Background

Jones sings of the irreplacibility of country music and rock and roll legends including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, and Lefty Frizzell. After remarking about these singers' impacts on music, he wonders who will replace them when they're gone - hence, the title line - and thus become legends in their own right. In the 1994 video retrospective Golden Hits Jones recalled:

"Troy Seals wrote that...He saved the day for us...Songwriters were bringin' things in and we were listening to songs and tapes, and Troy came in and told Billy [Sherrill, Jones' producer] and me that he had this idea, and he sung a little bit of the chorus...He came back about ten o'clock or eleven the next morning before we went in to do our session at two o'clock, he had it all finished and it just knocked us out."

A promotional video for the song was aired on

Judds, Reba McEntire, and Dwight Yoakam. However, with a new crop of country stars emerging, the song had an unfortunate connotation, with Andrew Mueller noting in Jones' Uncut
obituary, "As it turned out, the song wasn't brilliantly timed. A few of its protagonists still had decades left in them, as did Jones himself..."

Critical reception

Eugene Chadbourne of

Allmusic describes the song as "the kind of mystical, self-serving necrophilia that country music is all about".[2] Jones biographer Bob Allen states, "It struck a strong enough chord of empathy with old-time country music lovers to end up number three in Billboard."[3]

Chart performance

Chart (1985) Peak
position
US Hot Country Songs (Billboard)[4] 3
Canadian RPM Country Tracks 2

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-89820-177-2
    .
  2. ^ Chadbourne, Eugene. "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes review". Allmusic. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
  3. ISBN 978-0312956981
    .
  4. ^ "George Jones Chart History (Hot Country Songs)". Billboard.
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