Cry Myself a River: Blues Song Guide

The closest and far better-known relative to this title is "Cry Me a River," written by Arthur Hamilton and first published in 1953. It was originally intended for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in the 1955 film Pete Kelly's Blues, though it was cut from the picture before release, and it became a standard instead through Julie London's 1955 recording, later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. "Cry Me a River" is usually classified as a torch song or jazz-pop standard rather than a straight blues number, but its bluesy chord movement and themes of bitter vindication after heartbreak have made it a frequent part of blues and blues-jazz singers' repertoires, including a well-known 1959 version by Shirley Bassey.

This entry serves as a guide to the broader blues tradition this title evokes: the "crying" song, in which tears, weeping, and emotional overflow stand in for grief too large to speak plainly. That tradition runs through the genre from its earliest documented era. "Trouble in Mind," a blues standard first published in the 1920s and recorded by dozens of artists since, including Nina Simone and countless blues and jazz vocalists, builds its entire structure around sorrow that the singer cannot shake, using weather and water imagery in a way that closely parallels what a title like "Cry Myself a River" suggests.

What both "Cry Me a River" and "Trouble in Mind" share is a refusal to wallow passively. These songs tend to turn grief into a kind of reckoning, aimed either at an ex-lover who caused the pain or at fate itself. That emotional arc, from private devastation toward something closer to resolve, is one of the most durable structures in blues songwriting, showing up across generations of Southern California blues club performances.

"Cry Me a River" is widely and legally available through official artist and label channels on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, and remains the strongest entry point into this corner of the torch-blues songbook. For more on heartbreak themes in the blues catalog, continue to Country Girl or move ahead to Don't Freeze on Me, and browse the full set of guides at our blues music hub.