The clock has struck midnight. The air is thick with the scent of stale coffee and something like woodsmoke, even in this spotless kitchen. Turn the dial, find the ghost frequency—that spot where the old steel guitars and lonesome voices still drift. And there he is: The Possum. George Jones.
It’s a voice instantly recognizable, a sound forged in the fire of excess and redemption, capable of holding both the deepest ache and the most transcendent joy in a single, perfectly pitched syllable. When “Choices” begins, it doesn’t storm in; it settles, heavy and deliberate, like dust after a long, hard journey.
This isn’t a song of wild youth or giddy romance. It is the sound of a man taking inventory, standing in the cold light of morning and surveying the landscape of his past. The weight of his own history, so often mythologized and sensationalized, pours into every line. This piece of music, more than almost any other in his late career, feels less like a performance and more like a whispered confession.
The track first appeared in 1999 on the album The Cold Hard Truth, produced by the formidable Keith Stegall. By this point, Jones had nothing left to prove and, perhaps more importantly, nothing left to hide. He was nearly five decades into a career that had seen him chart over 160 singles. The name George Jones had long been synonymous with the very soul of country music, its grit, its high lonesome tenor, and its devastating clarity about human frailty.
Stegall’s production approach here is a masterclass in restraint. It is clean, respectful, and entirely focused on creating an uncluttered frame for Jones’s voice. The arrangement breathes, giving each instrument its due space. We are not dealing with the lush, string-laden productions of the 1970s that occasionally overwhelmed the core emotion; this is stripped-down honesty.
The primary texture is built upon the classic country rhythm section. The bassline walks with a measured, almost funereal pace, grounding the contemplation. Over this, the gentle wash of brushed snare drums provides a steady heartbeat, refusing to rush the narrative. The electric guitar work is pure elegance. It’s not flashy, but purposeful—a clean, twangy tone, often using short, melancholic fills between Jones’s phrases. This playing acts as a conversational partner, a brief, wordless echo of the singer’s reflection.
Consider the line, “I’ve had choices, since the day that I was born / There were voices that told me right from wrong.” It’s a simple lyric, yet Jones’s phrasing gives it tectonic power. He doesn’t just sing the word “choices”; he chews on it, the vibrato barely perceptible but giving the syllable an extra half-second of consequence. When you listen closely on quality premium audio equipment, you can practically hear the man swallowing the regret before pushing the note out.
The piano, too, plays a critical, if understated, role. It provides a warm, chordal foundation, often adding a high, sustained note at the end of a musical phrase, like a teardrop catching the light. It’s the sound of a quiet room, maybe an old church or a late-night diner booth, where the harsh realities of life can finally be faced.
The song’s power comes from its universality applied to a specific, legendary life. We, the listeners, know the context: the battles with addiction, the broken relationships, the missed shows, the dizzying highs of his musical genius. The lines about choosing the wrong road, running with the wrong crowd, and making promises he couldn’t keep aren’t hypothetical—they are verified fact, etched in public record.
For a moment, let’s step into a modern scene. A young man, barely 25, sits hunched over his laptop, headphones on. He’s navigating the soul-crushing bureaucracy of student loan repayments and the weight of a job that feels utterly meaningless. He clicks on “Choices.” He knows nothing of the Opry, of Tammy Wynette, or of the legendary wildness of Jones. But the lyric hits him: “Lord, I ain’t always been a good boy / So I ask you, ‘What about me?'” It’s an instant bridge across fifty years and a thousand miles of cultural difference. The specific choices may change, but the core feeling—the aching uncertainty of having to live with your past—is timeless.
“It is a masterclass in the artistry of the late-life confession, where restraint serves as the most potent form of catharsis.”
This is not catharsis delivered through shouting; it’s catharsis through acceptance. Jones, who once performed with a voice of impossible range and power, here relies on texture and world-weariness. His voice is rich, the cracks and imperfections now serving as high-definition texture, not flaws. It is an honest document of a voice aging, yet gaining deeper character.
The song’s melody is deceptively simple, following a traditional country waltz-like structure that leans into the melancholy minor keys just enough to keep the listener unsettled. It builds only in emotional intensity, never in volume. It remains mid-tempo, focused, and unhurried. This deliberate pace forces the listener to sit with the narrative, to truly internalize the gravity of the choices being recounted.
A key cultural moment solidified the song’s place: the CMA Awards. Jones, feeling disrespected by being asked to perform only a truncated version of the song, famously stopped singing and performed the full song live on the televised broadcast in 1999. It was a defiant act, a refusal to condense the complexity of his life into a radio-friendly soundbite. This defiance, this insistence on the full truth, cemented “Choices” as an anthem of integrity. It showed the public that the old lion still had his teeth, and that he refused to compromise the message of a song that had become his late-career artistic manifesto.
Ultimately, “Choices” endures because it is a meditation on the ledger of life. We all stand at that intersection, knowing we have messed up, knowing that we have disappointed others and ourselves. This song doesn’t offer easy absolution; it offers only the quiet dignity of acknowledging the truth. It reminds us that every single life decision, from the grand sweeping ones to the tiny, everyday ones, leaves an indelible mark. It’s a powerful invitation to reflect, delivered by a man who earned the right to preach this particular gospel through sheer, staggering experience. Go back and listen—it’s the sound of a legacy, distilled.
Listening Recommendations
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Merle Haggard – “If We Make It Through December”: Shares the same mood of hard-won, quiet resignation about financial and emotional hardship during the holidays.
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Tammy Wynette – “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”: Features a similar theme of the painful, irreversible consequences of life decisions, delivered with raw vocal clarity.
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Johnny Cash – “Hurt”: A late-career masterpiece that, like “Choices,” strips back the bravado to offer a profound, world-weary reflection on a life lived fully.
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Willie Nelson – “Always On My Mind”: A ballad of quiet apology and acknowledgment of past mistakes, set to a similarly restrained and emotionally deep arrangement.
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Conway Twitty – “Hello Darlin'”: Uses the simplicity of a conversational delivery to convey a depth of regret and enduring love, much like Jones’s directness.
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Alan Jackson – “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”: Though for a different context, it showcases a modern country star finding profound, simple language to articulate a collective, deeply felt moment of consequence.