About The Song
While “A Picture of Me (Without You)” may have been originally recorded by the country legend George Jones in 1972, Lorrie Morgan absolutely made it her own when she released the song decades later.
In 1991, Lorrie Morgan covered “A Picture of Me (Without You)” on her album Something in Red and had a No. 8 country hit with it that same year. After the success of Morgan’s version of the iconic tune, George Jones joined her on stage for an emotional duet of the song.
Morgan started the performance solo before Jones walked across the stage, joining the young singer to perform the song together. The two country singers finished out the performance, harmonizing the haunting lyrics beautifully.
“Can you picture Heaven with no angels singing or a quiet Sunday morning with no church bells ringing. If you’ve watched as the heart of a child breaks in two. Then you’ve seen a picture of me without you,” the song goes.
Songwriters Norro Wilson and George Richey wrote “A Picture of Me (Without You)” specifically with George Jones in mind. Wilson had to sing the song for Jones, “imitating the Jones style to show how he wanted it sung.” And despite the heavy use of string instruments, George Jones’ vocals gave the tune all the country it required to hold its genre and heart-wrenching message.
Written in the same way the older song called “That’s Me Without You” by Webb Pierce, “A Picture of Me (Without You)” sings about the tale of a man telling his lover to imagine incomplete things, like a world where no music is playing, a church where nobody’s praying, among others. By seeing this, she can imagine what it’s going to be like for the man to live without her by his side.
Jones took the song to No. 5 on the 1972 country chart, and it quickly became a staple at all his live shows. In his autobiography I Lived to Tell It All in 1995, Jones even quoted lines from the song to describe his sorrow at the passing of his brother-in-law W.T. “Dub” Scroggins in 1993.
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Lyrics
Imagine a world where no music was playing
And think of a church with nobody praying
Have you ever looked up at a sky with no blue
Then you’ve seen a picture of me without you
Have you walked in a garden where nothing was growing
Or stood by a river where nothing was flowing
If you’ve seen a red rose unkissed by the dew
Then you’ve seen a picture of me without you
Can you picture Heaven with no angels singing
Or a quiet Sunday morning with no church bells ringing
If you’ve watched as the heart of a child breaks in two
Then you’ve seen a picture of me without you
Can you picture Heaven with no angels singing
Or a quiet Sunday morning with no church bells ringing
If you’ve watched as the heart of a child breaks in two
Then you’ve seen a picture of me without you