Introduction
“Heartaches by the Number” is a classic country song recorded by American singer Dwight Yoakam for his debut studio album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., released by Reprise Records on March 12, 1986. The album, produced by guitarist Pete Anderson and recorded mainly at Excalibur Studios and Capitol Studio B in California, became Yoakam’s first of several releases to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. On this project, Yoakam combined original material with a small number of carefully chosen covers, including “Heartaches by the Number.”
The song itself was written by Harlan Howard and first became a hit in 1959. Ray Price recorded the original country version for Columbia Records, taking it to No. 2 on the Billboard country chart and keeping it there for weeks. Later the same year, pop singer Guy Mitchell released his own version, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also charted strongly in Canada and several European markets. These early successes helped establish “Heartaches by the Number” as one of Howard’s best-known compositions and a standard of both country and pop repertoires.
On Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., Yoakam’s recording appears as the closing track and is one of the album’s key non-original pieces. Alongside his cover of “Ring of Fire,” it demonstrates his intention to connect his music directly to the classic country songbook while still presenting a coherent artistic identity. The standard ten-track configuration of the album places “Heartaches by the Number” after “Miner’s Prayer,” giving it the role of a final statement that sums up Yoakam’s relationship with earlier generations of country music.
Lyrically, Yoakam’s version follows Howard’s original text: the narrator counts off “heartache number one” when his lover leaves, “heartache number two” when she returns without meaning to stay, and “heartache number three” when she promises to come back but never arrives. The chorus contrasts the diminishing love on her side with the narrator’s continued devotion, summed up in the line that the day he stops counting heartaches will be the day his world ends. The straightforward structure and repetition make the song easy to follow while underlining the emotional weariness at its core.
Musically, Yoakam and Anderson reshape the song within a modern Bakersfield-influenced framework. The arrangement features prominent electric guitar, pedal steel, fiddle and a firm backbeat, giving the track a harder edge than earlier Ray Price recordings while still remaining recognizably country. Commentators have noted that the band’s accompaniment is tougher and more driving than the 1950s versions, and that Yoakam’s vocal approach turns the lyric from a pleading lament into a more matter-of-fact statement of how things are. This difference in delivery highlights the distance between the optimistic postwar era and the more self-aware tone of 1980s neo-traditional country.
Yoakam’s rendition was not released as a standalone single from Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., so it does not have its own Billboard chart history in the way the Ray Price and Guy Mitchell versions do. Instead, its exposure came through album sales, radio play of the LP as a whole and later catalog releases. The track reappeared on the 2006 deluxe reissue of Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., which added live recordings from the Roxy Theatre in 1986, including a concert version of “Heartaches by the Number.” It has also been included on compilation sets such as Platinum Collection and the career-spanning box Please Baby: The Warner Bros. Years, ensuring continued availability on digital and physical formats.
Within discussions of Yoakam’s early work, “Heartaches by the Number” is often cited as an example of how he helped launch the so-called New Traditionalist movement in 1980s country. By taking a well-known Harlan Howard song and pairing faithful country instrumentation with a sharper rhythmic feel and contemporary production, Yoakam managed to appeal both to fans of classic honky-tonk and to a younger audience discovering this material for the first time. The track stands as a bridge between the late-1950s Nashville sound and the revamped, roots-conscious country that Yoakam and his peers brought to prominence in the mid-1980s.
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Lyric
Heartache Number One was when you left me
I never knew that I could hurt this way
Heartache Number Two was when you came back again
You came back and never meant to stay
Now I’ve got heartaches by the number
Troubles by the score
Everyday you love me less
Each day I love you more
Now I’ve got heartaches by the number
A love that I can’t win
But the day that I stop counting
That’s the day my world will end
Heartache Number Three was when you called me
And told me you was coming home to stay
With hoping heart I waited for your knock on the door
I waited but you must have lost your way
Now I’ve got heartaches by the number
Troubles by the score
Everyday you love me less
Each day I love you more
Now I’ve got heartaches by the number
Love that I can’t win
The day that I stop counting
That’s the day my world will end
Ah the day that I stop counting
That’s the day my world will end…