#SongLyricSunday March 14

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This week our host Jim Adams for Song Lyric Sunday has given us the prompt of Anguish/Misery/Torment

Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Also feel free to offer up your suggestion to this week’s prompt.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I choose a song performed by one of America’s great musical treasures, Mr. Ray Charles. The song is titled is Busted.

“Busted” is a song written by Harlan Howard in 1962. It was recorded and first released by Johnny Cash for his 1963 album Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Ray Charles’ cover of “Busted” reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963. 

Ray Charles accomplished so much in his life. He is often credited with being the musician who popularized the genre of “Soul Music”. Charles’s 1954 hit “I Got A Woman”, which was recorded at the campus radio station WGST located at Georgia Tech, pushed Soul Music into many American homes. Ray Charles was a master singer/songwriter.

The irony of this song was it started out as country song that Ray made soulful. That is the beauty of music an artist can tweak a song to make it become something else

Here are the song lyrics to Busted.

Yeah, my bills are all due and the baby needs shoes but I’m busted
Cotton is down, quarter a pound but I’m busted, oh yeah
I got cow that went dry, hen that won’t lay
Big stack of bills gettin’ bigger each day
County’s gonna haul my name, know that I went and I’m busted, I am, yeah

Well, I went to my brother to ask for a loan ’cause I was busted
But I hate to beg like a dog for a bone but I’m busted
But my brother said, “There ain’t a thing I can do
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu
I was just thinking about calling on you ’cause I’m busted”

And I am no thief but a man can go wrong when he’s busted
The food that we canned last summer is gone and I’m busted, no, no, no
Well, the fields are all bare and the cotton won’t grow
And my family and I had to pack up and go
I’ll make a living, my Lord, how I don’t know ’cause I’m busted

Offering up three videos. The first is by Johnny Cash.

The second is by Ray Charles.

The last one is Johnny Cash and Ray Charles appearing on the Johnny Cash TV Show.

The two of them both sing of the anguish, misery, and torment of being busted.