Tennessee Waltz

"Tennessee Waltz" is a popular country music song with lyrics by Redd Stewart and music by Pee Wee King written in 1946 and first released in January 1948. The song became a multimillion seller via a 1950 recording – as "The Tennessee Waltz" – by Patti Page. All versions of the lyrics narrate a situation in which the persona has introduced his or her sweetheart to a friend who then waltzes away with her or him. The lyrics are altered for pronoun gender on the basis of the gender of the singer. The popularity of "Tennessee Waltz" made it the fourth official song of the state of Tennessee in 1965. Page's recording was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Composition and early recordings Pee Wee King, Redd Stewart, and their fellow Golden West Cowboys members were en route to Nashville "close to Christmas in 1946" when King and Stewart, who were riding in a truck carrying the group's equipment, heard Bill Monroe's new song "Kentucky Waltz" on the radio. Stewart had an idea to write a Tennessee waltz using the melody of King's theme song: "No Name Waltz", and wrote the lyrics on a matchbox as he and King thought up the words. King and Stewart presented "Tennessee Waltz" to music publisher Fred Rose the next day, and Rose adjusted one line in the bridge of Stewart's lyric from "O the Tennessee waltz, O the Tennessee Waltz," to "I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz."