About The Song
George Jones’ hit song, “The Grand Tour” will absolutely be our all-time favorite.
It was released in 1974 as the first single from Jones’ album of the same name. The emotional song was a hit and earned Jones the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, the sixth No. 1 song of his career.
While “The Grand Tour” itself was incredibly successful, the song’s meaning was about a failed marriage and lost love.
The song kicked off with sorrowful foreshadowing that sends chills down your spine. Jones then invited us into his broken home, now haunted by happy memories of the past.
“There’s her rings, all her things. And her clothes are in the closet like she left them when she tore my world apart. As you leave, you’ll see the nursery. Oh, she left me without mercy. Taking nothing but our baby and my heart,” the song goes.
Jones’ bellowing and his sorrowful voice added an element of real pain to the song as soon as he sang. So, it was no longer a surprise when Rolling Stone named the song No. 38 on its “40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time.”
Songwriter Norro Wilson contemplated the success of “The Grand Tour” in The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits. “As I recall, when George cut that song, it was the most talked-about record he’d had in an awfully long time,” Wilson said. “‘The Grand Tour’ is one of my proudest moments.”
When Wilson arrived at the Grand Ole Opry around the time of the record’s release, “No sooner I walked in the door, everybody came runnin’ up to me and said, ‘Jesus Christ! Have you got a monster on your hands?’” Wilson recalled. “And man, I went ballistic! Everybody I ran across that night said, ‘That’s just gonna be a monster.’ It was a really, really, really good record.”
“The Grand Tour” was also deeply personal for Jones when he first sang it, as his own marriage to his fellow country star, Tammy Wynette, was on the verge of its end. Indeed, just within a year of the song’s release, Jones sadly split from his wife. Oddly enough, Wynette later married George Richey, who co-wrote “The Grand Tour.”
Video
Lyrics
Step right up, come on in
If you’d like to take the grand tour
Of a lonely house that once was home sweet home
I have nothing here to sell you
Just some things that I will tell you
Some things I know will chill you to the bone
Over there, sits the chair
Where she’d bring the paper to me
And sit down on my knee
And whisper, “Oh, I love you”
But now she’s gone forever
And this old house will never be the same
Without the love that we once knew
Straight ahead, that’s the bed
Where we lay in love together
And Lord knows we had a good thing going here
See her picture on the table
Don’t it look like she’d be able
Just to touch me and say, “Good morning, dear?”
There’s her rings, all her things
And her clothes are in the closet
Like she left them when she tore my world apart
As you leave, you’ll see the nursery
Oh, she left me without mercy
Taking nothing but our baby, and my heart
Step right up, come on in