End of the World – Skeeter Davis

I first heard this song about fifteen years ago and was a little caught off-guard because the the lyrics and melody didn’t seem to match. See for yourself.

Lyrics:
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world,
‘Cause you don’t love me any more?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world.
It ended when I lost your love.

I wake up in the morning and I wonder,
Why everything’s the same as it was.
I can’t understand. No, I can’t understand,
How life goes on the way it does.

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world.
It ended when you said goodbye.

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world.
It ended when you said goodbye.

Skeeter Davis (born Mary Frances Penick December 30, 1931 ? September 19, 2004) was an American country music singer, who was best known for crossover pop music songs of the early 1960s. She started out as part of The Davis Sisters in the early 1950s. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, she became a solo star. Her best known hit was the song “The End of the World” in 1963.

Near the end of Skeeter Davis’ honest, sometimes unsettling 1993 autobiography, Bus Fare to Kentucky, she concludes that “without the valleys, I could not have enjoyed the mountains.” True enough. She’s journeyed through poverty, musical triumphs and stumbles, controversy, three marriages, and traumas capped by sixteen years battling the cancer that ended her life September 19 at age 72.