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1970 single by Roy Clark
"
I Never Picked Cotton
" is a song made famous by
country music
singer
Roy Clark
. Written by Bobby George and Charlie Williams, the song was released in 1970 as the title track to the album released that same year. The song peaked at No. 5 on the
Billboard magazine
Hot Country Singles
chart that summer. Charlie Williams wrote several songs that Roy Clark recorded, including "Right or Left at Oak Street."
Song plot
[
edit
]
The story is told in
first-person narrative
from the perspective of an Oklahoma native, the youngest of three children from a destitute
sharecropping
family. In the song's chorus, the protagonist recalls how his mother, brother and sister all picked cotton while his dad, a coal miner, suffered an untimely death.
In the first verse, the man recalls his family's past and his own upbringing, and swore to himself that once he was old enough he would leave the farm and his family behind. He eventually made good on his promise in the second verse, stealing ten dollars and a pick-up truck and absconding from his homestead, never to return. From then on the man lived a hedonistic lifestyle replete with "fast cars and whiskey, long-haired girls and fun", which he financed through
armed robbery
("I had everything that money could bring, and I took it all with a gun").
In the final verse, the man's reckless lifestyle culminates in
aggravated murder
while in
Memphis
when he kills a
redneck
who insults him. Arrested and convicted for the crime, the man is sentenced to death by hanging, and the night before his execution, he reflects on his decadent life and notes that, "In the time I've got, there ain't a hell of a lot that I can look back on with pride", except that he kept his promise to himself to "never pick cotton".
Cover versions
[
edit
]
A cover version of "I Never Picked Cotton" was recorded by
Johnny Cash
for his 1996 album
Unchained
.
[
importance?
]
Chart positions
[
edit
]
Roy Clark version
[
edit
]
Chart (1970)
|
Peak
position
|
U.S.
Billboard
Hot Country Singles
|
5
|
U.S.
Billboard
Bubbling Under Hot 100
|
22
|
Canadian
RPM
Country Tracks
|
2
|
References
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edit
]
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Studio albums
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Songs
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Related
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