There’s an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention!  And Faron Young’s 1972 hit, “It’s Four In The Morning” was just such a song. 

Faron Young had severely injured his tongue in a 1970’s car crash. After a long recovery period, he could finally talk again but had trouble singing, especially anything containing the letter “s.” So he asked Jerry Chestnut to write him a hit song without the letter “s.” So Jerry wrote “It’s Four In The Morning.” Faron liked the tune but Chestnut had written the song in three-quarter time.  Faron wanted to change the tune from waltz time because he didn’t think that waltzes would sell. Record Producer Jerry Kennedy persisted and finally persuaded Faron to record the song as Chestnut had written it.

“It’s Four In The Morning” entered the country music charts December 4^th, 1971’ and was in the number one spot the week of  February 19th, 1972 and stuck there for two weeks. It was Faron’s 69^th charted song and was on the charts for 20 weeks.

Doug Davis
Country Music Classics