About The Song
By the mid-1980s, Vern Gosdin had racked up nearly a dozen Top Ten hits including a number one record, “I Can Tell By The Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight).” After that chart-topper, Gosdin issued seven more singles for the Compleat label but, although they were great records, each one peaked lower than the one before. Finally, in 1986, Compleat bit the dust and Vern found himself without a label. Actually, it was the best thing because Compleat had always been short on promotion and marketing capabilities and due to this, Gosdin’s fine records usually ended up lower on the chart than they should have.
A year later, Merle Haggard extended an offer for Vern to come out to his studio in California and work on an album to be marketed on TV, but Merle’s friend, songwriter Hank Cochran, stepped in. Hank took Gosdin to the offices of Columbia Records to meet with producer Bob Montgomery. As they talked, a plan was developed for Montgomery to cut some sides with Vern and get him on the label.
Columbia advanced enough money to record five songs and one of them, “Do You Believe Me Now,” was released as a single. It vaulted to #4 on the Billboard chart and Gosdin was back in the spotlight once again. Five more songs were added to round out Vern’s first Columbia album, “Chiseled In Stone,” and the follow-up single, “Set ‘Em Up Joe,” returned him to number one.
“Set ‘Em Up Joe” was written at Hank Cochran’s cabin along the Little Pigeon River near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gosdin and his buddies Dean Dillon and Buddy Cannon had gone down there to visit Hank and write some songs specifically for the album. They ended up writing more than they needed – some twelve tunes during that particular outing.
“Set ‘Em Up Joe” evolved into a salute to Ernest Tubb’s 1941 classic and signature song, “Walking The Floor Over You.” All four of those guys had a great admiration for Tubb, so it was an easy song to write once the initial idea was blurted out by Dillon as they sat around the fireplace in Hank’s cabin.
“Walking The Floor Over You,” as country-sounding a record as one can be, was so huge in 1941 that it reached a respectable #23 on the national pop charts (Billboard’s country charts didn’t exist until ’44) and the song’s reference in “Set ‘Em Up Joe” propelled that single to number one 47 years later, on July 23, 1988. Gosdin would log his third and final chart-topper, “I’m Still Crazy,” on September 2, 1989
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Lyrics
They got a vintage Victrola 1951
Full of my favorite records that I grew up on
They got ole Hank and Lefty and there’s B24
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
I’m gonna spend the night like every night before
Playin E.T. and I’ll play him some more
I’ve gotta have a shot of them old troubadours
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
All my neon neighbors they like what I play
‘Cause they’ve heard it every night since you’ve walked away
Every day they replace old B24
‘Cause every night I run a needle through? Walking The Floor?
Every night I run a needle through? Walking The Floor?
I’m gonna spend the night like every night before
Playin E.T. and I’ll play him some more
I’ve gotta have a shot of them old troubadours
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor?
I said “Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor'”
Set ’em up Joe and play? Walking The Floor’
OldiesSong