THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

264-Buddy Holly-True Love Ways.

1958-It was not released until 1960, when reaching Number 25.

Best Bit-At 0.01. True Love Ways was recorded at the last studio session by Buddy Holly, 105 days before ‘the music died.’

Buddy Holly (see also best songs 898) was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7th, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, United States. In the early hours of February 3rd, 1959, a plane carrying Holly, along with fellow singers Ritchie Valens, (1941-1959) and The Big Bopper, (1930-1959) (see also best songs 1017) and the pilot Roger Peterson crashed in inclement weather near Clear Water, Iowa, United States, killing all four of them instantly shortly after take off. In his 1971 song ‘American Pie,’ (see also best songs 4) Don McLean referred to the event as ‘The day the music died.’

Buddy Holly is one of Pop Music’s most influential artists, Holly himself has said that his own early inspiration to follow a ‘Rock N’ Roll’ path was after watching Elvis Presley perform on television. In turn John Lennon and Paul McCartney have said that it was after seeing Holly on television appearing on ‘Sunday Night at the London Paladium’ that inspired their performance and lyricism, they also chose the name the ‘Beatles,’ after the Holly’s insect themed ‘Crickets.’ Although Buddy Holly was only 22 years old when he died he had already written a vast amount of songs, many not fully finished and left in the vaults. It was Holly’s producer Norman Petty (1927-1984) who overdubbed many of these songs, adding instrumentation, and sometimes backing vocals. During his lifetime Holly issued three studio Albums between 1957-1958, and 18 singles. Following his death a further 10 singles were released, and there have been 29 official posthumous compilation Albums issued between 1959-2018. Holly’s co-write of ‘That’ll Be the Day’ with fellow Cricket Jerry Allison was Number 1 in America and the UK in 1957, while ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ written by Paul Anka, gave Holy a posthumous UK Number 1 hit in 1959.

‘True Love Ways’ was written by Buddy Holly, with additional melody and lyrics provided by Norman Petty. The song was recorded along with three other tracks at Holly’s last recording session before his death. The melody borrows heavily from the Gospel song ‘I’ll Be All Right,’ which was a favourite of Holly’s, and was played at his funeral. According to Holly’s wife Marie Elena ‘True Love Ways’ was written for her as a wedding gift. The couple had met on June 20th, 1958, and married on August 15th, 1958, they were married for less than six months.

Marie learnt of her husbands death from the reports on the television, at the time she was two weeks pregnant, she suffered a miscarriage shortly after, reportedly due to psychological trauma. Following the miscarriage, and because of the circumstances in which she was informed of his death, a policy was later adopted by authorities not to disclose victims names until after their families have been informed.

‘Sometimes we’ll sigh, sometimes we’ll cry, and we’ll know why just you and I know true love ways.