Lee Brice was recently a performer at the Grand Ole Opry. He covered “Old Violin” which is a song by Johnny Paycheck and Merle Haggard. You can find the original version in Johnny Paycheck’s greatest hits album here.

With Johnny Paychecks death in 2003, his songs are not well known for the younger generations of country music fans. However his legacy is still living on as artists like Lee Brice are so grateful to sing these traditional songs so soulfully. Lee himself has dove in and out of current country trends with songs that some would consider very modern, and some that take influence from these classic traditional songs. Lyrics below:

Well, I can’t recall, one time in my life,

I’ve felt as lonely as I do tonight.

I feel like I could lay down, and get up no more,

It’s the damndest feelin’; I never felt it before.

Tonight I feel like an old violin,

Soon to be put away and never played again.

Don’t ask me why I feel like this, hell, I can’t say.

I only wish this feelin’ would just go away.

I guess it’s ‘cos the truth,

Is the hardest thing I ever faced.

‘Cause you can’t change the truth,

In the slightest way. I tried.

So I asked myself,

I said: ‘John, where do you go from here?’

Then like a damned fool,

I turned around and looked in the mirror.

And there I saw, an old violin.

Soon to be put away and never played again.

So one more time, just to be sure,

I said: ‘John, where in the hell do you go from here?’

You know there wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference,

When I looked in the mirror, that’s when I knew.

That there I was seein’, an old violin.

Soon to be put away, and never played again.

And just like that, it hit me,

That old violin and I were just alike.

We’d give our all to music,

And soon, we’d give our life.