About The Song
In the spring of 1966, David Houston drove up from Louisiana to Nashville for a session that was supposed to be straightforward. The planned A-side was a song called “We Got Love.” He checked into the old Sam Davis Hotel and realized he still needed a B-side. Producer Billy Sherrill got word of the problem, rounded up his frequent writing partner Glenn Sutton, and the two of them set to work late that night. By midnight they had one verse and a chorus. They finished the second verse by dawn. Houston recorded the new song the next morning at Columbia’s studio on Music Row.
That last-minute track was “Almost Persuaded.” Epic released the single in June 1966 with “We Got Love” listed as the plug side. Then an Atlanta disc jockey named Mac Curtis flipped the record and started playing the other side on WPLO. Listener response was immediate. Within weeks the song climbed the country chart and, on August 13, reached number one. It stayed there for nine straight weeks—the longest run at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the entire decade. It also crossed over, peaking at number 24 on the Hot 100, Houston’s only top-40 pop hit. The album that carried the same title went to number one on the country album chart.
The story the song tells is simple and precise. A married man sits alone in a barroom and meets a woman with ruby lips and dark hair. Temptation rises. They dance. She leans in and asks him to take her away. As he looks into her eyes he sees the reflection of his own wedding band. The memory of the vows he made pulls him back. He walks out, almost persuaded but not quite.
Sherrill’s production gave the record a quiet, deliberate pace. The piano figure played by Hargus “Pig” Robbins became one of its signatures. At the 1967 Grammy Awards the single earned Houston awards for Best Country & Western Recording and Best Male Country Vocal Performance; Sherrill and Sutton took Best Country Song. It was the first number-one hit written and produced by Sherrill, the start of a long run of success for both the producer and the singer.
The song quickly became a standard. George Jones, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Lefty Frizzell, and even Louis Armstrong recorded it. Sheb Wooley, under his comic name Ben Colder, rushed out a parody called “Almost Persuaded No. 2.” For more than forty years no other country single matched that nine-week stay at number one. Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” finally equaled it in 2012.
What has kept the record alive is the quiet honesty of the moment it describes—the instant when temptation is strongest and conscience still wins. Written overnight because a singer needed a B-side, recorded the next morning, and turned over by a disc jockey who preferred the flip, “Almost Persuaded” became one of the defining country hits of the 1960s.
Video
Lyric
Last night all alone in a barroom
Met a girl with a drink in her hand
She had ruby red lips, coal black hair
And eyes that would tempt any man
Then she came and sat down at my table
And then she placed her soft hands in mine
I found myself wanting to kiss her
For temptation was flowing like wine
And I was almost persuaded to strip myself of my pride
Almost persuaded to push my conscience aside
Then we danced and she whispered, “I need you
Take me away from here and be my man”
Then I looked into her eyes and I saw it
The reflection of my wedding band
And I was almost persuaded to let strange lips lead me on
Almost persuaded but your sweet love made me stop and go home