IT WASN'T GOD WHO MADE HONKEY TONK ANGELS
is a 1952 country song written by J.D. Miller and originally recorded by Kitty Wells. It was an "answer song" to the Hank Thompson hit "The Wild Side of Life."
In "The Wild Side of Life," Thompson expresses regret that his bride-to-be has left him for another man whom she met in a roadhouse, stating "I didn't know that God made honky tonk angels..." In Wells' response -- which follows the same melody, but more uptempo -- she cites the original song and c
ounters that, for every woman who had been led astray, it was a man who led her there (often through his own infidelity). She also expresses frustration about how women are always made scapegoats for the man's faults in a given relationship. WELL'S STATEMENT WAS A RATHER DARING ONE to make in 1952,
particularly in the conservative, male-dominated realm of country music. Yet, she struck a chord with her fans, as it became a six-week No. 1 song on Billboard magazine's country charts (making Wells the first woman to ever top the country music charts). Eventually, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-T
onk Angels" outsold Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life," and launched the then little-known Wells into superstardom. The song has since been performed by nearly every female country artist at one time or another, with notable versions having been recorded by Dolly Parton and Patty Loveless. The melo
dy of the song is very similar to, if not borrowed from, Reverend Guy Smith's "The Great Speckled Bird" which was recorded and popularised by Roy Acuff. Acuff himself borrowing the melody from the Carter Family's "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes". This similarity between the four songs was par
odied by David Allen Coe in his composition "If That Ain't Country" that he finishes, mocking the same melody, with the verse: I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes Concerning the Great Speckled Bird I didn't know God made Honky-Tonk Angels And went back to the Wild Side of Life

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