Hank Williams' 'Lovesick Blues' Tops LyricFind Global Chart After Viral Yodeling Boy Video
4/10/2018 by Kevin Rutherford
Hank Williams poses for a portrait circa 1948 in Nashville, Tenn.
Eleven-year-old Mason Ramsey’s viral video performing the song in a Walmart has driven curious listeners to Williams’ classic.
Hank Williams is back atop a Billboard chart -- and it’s all thanks to a yodeling 11-year-old.
Williams’ rendition of “Lovesick Blues” tops Billboard’s LyricFind Global chart dated April 14 -- and ranks at No. 2 on the LyricFind U.S. ranking -- after a video of kid yodeler Mason Ramsey performing the song in a Walmart went viral.
The LyricFind Global and LyricFind U.S. charts rank the fastest momentum-gaining tracks in lyric-search queries globally and in the U.S., respectively, provided by LyricFind. The Global chart includes queries from all countries except the U.S. The company is the world's leader in licensed lyrics, with data provided by more than 4,000 publishers and utilized by more than 100 services, including Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, Microsoft, Yahoo, SoundHound and iHeartRadio. The charts’ latest tracking week ended April 8.
“Lovesick Blues” was originally written for the 1922 musical Oh, Ernest and was first recorded by Emmett Miller in 1928 before Williams’ version was released in early 1949.
The lyrics of Williams’ version skyrocket to the top of the Global chart with a 307 percent jump in lyric searches week-over-week, according to LyricFind. That follows a 108 percent spike over the previous week, when the video was first uploaded and eventually circulated.
It was bested on the U.S. chart by U2’s “(Pride) In the Name of Love.” The song -- about Martin Luther King Jr. -- was propelled to No. 1 due to the 50th anniversary of King's assassination on April 4, 1968.
In addition to its lyric searches, Williams’ “Lovesick” has seen gains in both digital downloads and streams since Ramsey’s rendition went viral. In the latest sales-and-streaming tracking week (March 30-April 5), the song racked up 1,000 downloads (up 654 percent) and 1 million streams (a gain of 1,803 percent), according to Nielsen Music.
Ramsey performed the song Tuesday (April 10) on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.