About The Song
“Heart of Glass” is a concise track by Buck Owens & His Buckaroos that appears on the 1966 LP Open Up Your Heart, an album issued by Capitol Records on December 27, 1966. The record was part of a particularly productive stretch for Owens and the Buckaroos and the album itself reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country albums chart, making the song part of a high point in Owens’s commercial run. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
The song is credited to Buck Owens and Red Simpson, names that tie it directly to the Bakersfield songwriting community and Owens’s collaborative approach in the mid-1960s. It was cut during the Capitol sessions that produced much of the material for Open Up Your Heart, and it reflects the tight writing teams Owens favored—occasionally inserting outside co-writers like Simpson into the Buckaroos’ catalog. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
In single release terms “Heart of Glass” functioned as the B-side to the Don Rich–penned single “Think of Me,” which was released on May 2, 1966; “Think of Me” became a major country hit, topping the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and spending weeks on radio playlists, while “Heart of Glass” remained more of an album and B-side item in Owens’s output. That single’s success helped keep the album and its non-single tracks in listeners’ rotation. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
The lyric uses the “heart of glass” metaphor in a straightforward, country vernacular: the narrator speaks about a fragile, repeatedly broken heart and the work of mending it. The song runs just over two minutes and is economical in its storytelling, leaning on repeated images of repaired pieces and a caution against letting the heart be broken again. Contemporary lyric listings and streaming credits consistently attribute the words to Owens and Simpson. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
Musically the track is emblematic of the Bakersfield sound—compact, guitar-forward arrangements, clear Telecaster twang, and close harmony from the Buckaroos rather than lush Nashville strings. The album credits list Ken Nelson as producer and the Capitol studio sessions as the recording venue, with Don Rich’s playing and harmony voice continuing to shape the group’s identity across these tracks. Those production choices are part of what kept Owens’s records feeling immediate and band-led. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
Although “Heart of Glass” never emerged as a headline single on its own, it has persisted through compilations and reissues: the song appears on Buck Owens box sets and the Complete Capitol Singles collections and remains available on streaming platforms, where modern listeners can hear this small but characteristic example of Owens’s mid-1960s craft. Its presence as a B-side and album cut makes it a useful window into how Owens and his collaborators balanced hits with concise album storytelling. :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
Video
Lyric
Oh, heart of glass
I keep mending you
Every time
She breaks you in two.
How many more
Heartaches now
Must she put us through
Until she stops breaking you.
— Instrumental —
Oh, heart of glass
I hear she’s back in town
I know it won’t be long
Until she’ll be around.
Picking up again
The pieces of the past
Oh, tell her no
Walk away heart of glass
Don’t let her break you again
Heart of glass…