Twenty seven days I've been out on the road
I'm a nervous wreck, I gotta get back home
There's a young bride waiting for me all alone
Lord, how she misses me

I can see her sittin' in the kitchen chair
In a cotton dress with her long black hair
But a woman ain't pretty if a man ain't there
That I can't afford to be

It's a shame, it's a shame
She won't be the one to blame
Oh the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
Is the heart of a lonely girl

Like a red-tail fox to a blue tick hound
She's the hottest thing for miles around
All them other boys in our hometown
Got tricks hid up their sleeves

Now it ain't her that I don't trust
She's pretty and pure as diamond dust
But lonesome is this lonesome girl
She can't help for what she needs

It's a shame, it's a shame
She won't be the one to blame
Oh the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
Is the heart of a lonely girl

The heart of a lonely girl
The heart of a lonely girl
It's the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
The heart of a lonely girl

Daddy was a rambler just like me
I guess the apple don't fall too far from the tree
When I ask why momma had to go that day
Well he don't know and she won't say

It's a shame, it's a shame
She won't be the one to blame
Oh the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
Is the heart of a lonely girl

Yeah, it's a shame, it's a shame
She won't be the one to blame
Yeah the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
Is the heart of a lonely girl
Yeah the hurtinest thing in the whole wide world
Is the heart of a lonely girl