"Your Cheatin' Heart" is a 1952 country song written and recorded by Hank Williams with His Drifting Cowboys. It was released as a single in January 1953, after being recorded on September 23, 1952 at Castle Studio in Nashville, and runs about 2 minutes and 38 seconds. The tune blends country and western with honky tonk, and tells of heartbreak after infidelity, inspired by Williams' troubled marriage to Audrey Sheppard; Williams reportedly described her as a "cheatin' heart" and dictated the lyrics to Billie Jean Jones during a drive from Nashville to Shreveport. The single, with Kaw-Liga as the A-side, became a posthumous hit after Williams' death, topping the Billboard Country & Western chart for six weeks and selling over a million copies. Today it is regarded as one of country music's standards, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1983, and ranked among the era's greatest songs by Rolling Stone and CMA; it has been covered by Joni James, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline and many others and even featured in modern ads and media.
