The Carroll County Accident
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| "The Carroll County Accident" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Porter Wagoner | ||||
| from the album The Carroll County Accident | ||||
| Released | October 1968 | |||
| Format | 7" single | |||
| Recorded | 1968 | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 2:50 | |||
| Label | RCA Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Bob Ferguson (music) and Phillip E. Meyers (lyrics) | |||
| Porter Wagoner singles chronology | ||||
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"The Carroll County Accident" is a 1968 country song written by Bob Ferguson, and recorded by Porter Wagoner. It was a hit for Wagoner and became one of his signature songs.
[edit] Content
In the song, the singer tells the story of a single-car accident that occurs just inside the county line near his hometown. The passenger, Walter Browning, an upstanding member of the community and seemingly happily married man, dies; while the driver, Mary Ellen Jones, a woman not his wife but also well respected, survives to testify she was taking him to town on an errand of mercy.
The singer describes examining the wreckage and finding evidence of an extramarital affair between the two. He promptly disposes of the evidence and swears himself to silence. He does this in order to preserve their reputations in the county because, as he reveals in the last verse, Walter Browning was his father.[1]
The song reached #2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs, No. 1 on the Cash Box country singles chart, and #92 on the Billboard Hot 100
The idea of the song and most of the lyrics were written by Phillip E. Meyers and the music was by Bob Ferguson.
According to Ferguson, the song was written when he passed through Carroll County when driving from Nashville to a concert for the Choctaw Indians in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He recounted that he passed a sign for Carroll County in Tennessee, which inspired the song's title. When he finished the song, he saw a sign for another Carroll County in Mississippi.
[edit] Chart performance
| Chart (1969) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 92 |
| Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 80 |
| Preceded by "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" by Merle Haggard |
RPM Country Tracks number-one single February 3-February 17, 1969 |
Succeeded by "Mr. Brown" by Gary Buck |
