About The Song
“I Can’t Stop Loving You” was written by Don Gibson, who first recorded it in December 1957 as the B-side of his hit “Oh Lonesome Me.” The song quickly became a country standard and later gained even wider recognition through Ray Charles’ 1962 crossover version. Jim Reeves recorded his own interpretation on July 2, 1964, during what proved to be his final session for RCA Victor.
That day Reeves cut three songs—“Make the World Go Away,” “Missing You,” and “Is It Really Over?”—before discovering that studio time remained. He suggested recording one more number and chose “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” The take became the last track he completed under the RCA banner. A few weeks later, on July 31, 1964, Reeves died in a plane crash near Nashville.
The recording appeared on the posthumous album *The Jim Reeves Way*, released in 1965. It was not issued as a major commercial single at the time and did not chart in the manner of some of his other posthumous releases. Instead it remained an album track that later found its place on various compilations of his work.
The lyric is a plain statement of unresolved attachment. The singer acknowledges that he cannot stop loving the person who has left and has decided to live in the memories of better times. Reeves delivers the lines in the smooth, controlled style that defined his later recordings, with the restrained arrangement typical of the Nashville Sound productions overseen by Chet Atkins.
By 1964 Reeves had already established a long sequence of hits that ranged from early novelty numbers to polished ballads. Recording a well-known standard such as “I Can’t Stop Loving You” in his final session placed the song within the body of material that would continue to circulate after his death. The track sits alongside other late recordings that showed him still working productively in the weeks before the crash.
Within the broader history of the song, Reeves’ version is one of many covers that followed Gibson’s original. It stands apart mainly because of the circumstances of its creation—the final studio performance of an artist whose career had already moved from regional success to international recognition. The recording preserves the quiet, reflective quality that characterized much of his work in the early 1960s.
Video
Lyric
… If there’s water in the desert
Sand out in the sea
If you were not an angel
Sweet as you can be
… You can turn the night to day
Make all your dreams come true
Say how far it is to heaven
Then I’ll stop loving you
… If the earth is up above us
Stars are down below
If there are daisies in the desert
Roses in the snow
… If today can be tomorrow
If old things can be new
If you can live without a heartbeat
Then I’ll stop loving you
… And no daisies in the desert
No roses in the snow
The earth is not above us
The stars are not below
… Today can’t be tomorrow
Old things can’t be new
I can’t live without a heartbeat
And I can’t stop loving you
… There are no daisies in the desert
No roses in the snow
The earth is not above us
The stars are not below
… Today can’t be tomorrow
Old things can’t be new
I can’t live without a heartbeat
And I can’t stop loving you