“Crying” by Roy Orbison

"Crying" is Roy Orbison at his most operatic, a song he wrote with Joe Melson that came out on Monument in 1961 and became the title song of his third album, Crying, in 1962. Critic Dave Marsh called it a rock-bolero, and the record earns it: surging strings, pounding timpani, a spectral chorus, a softly strummed guitar and a touch of marimba, with Orbison's voice soaring over all of it.

Fred Foster produced, and the players were Orbison's session regulars: Bob Moore on double bass, Floyd Cramer on piano, Buddy Harman on drums, with Boudleaux Bryant, Harold Bradley and Scotty Moore on guitars. It reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Cashbox chart for a week. Years later Orbison cut it again as a duet with k.d. lang, and that version hit number two in Canada.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.