Andy Williams’ “Can’t Get Used to Losing You”: A Smooth Croon of Love’s Lingering Sting – A Song About the Heart’s Refusal to Let Go of What Once Was
When Andy Williams released “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” in March 1963, it glided to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Easy Listening chart for four weeks, a sleek standout from his album Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 16 weeks, certified Gold with over a million copies sold. A polished gem in his velvet reign, it marked Williams as the king of cool sophistication in a rock ‘n’ roll storm. For those of us who tuned in—maybe on a console stereo or a car radio under a spring sky—“Can’t Get Used to Losing You” wasn’t just a chart climber; it was a soft ache dressed in style, a song that older hearts can still hear humming through the years, pulling us back to a time when love’s loss felt like a melody we couldn’t shake, and Andy’s voice was the comfort we didn’t know we needed.
The story of “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” unfolds in the Brill Building’s golden haze, penned by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the duo behind “This Magic Moment”. Pomus, a bluesman turned hitmaker, wrote it in ’62, his heart bruised by a wife drifting away—some say it was her leaving, others a lover’s spat, but the pain was real, etched in every line. Williams, the Missouri crooner with a voice like brushed silk, had hit big with “Moon River” in ’61, and his NBC show was TV gold. He cut it at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio with producer Robert Mersey, who draped it in a cha-cha bounce—strings snapping, maracas clicking—Andy’s tenor floating over like a sigh in a tuxedo. Released as the Beatles’ mop-tops loomed and Kennedy’s Camelot shone, it landed with a suave defiance, a grown-up sound in a teen-pop tide, its charm sealed when Williams sang it live, hair perfect, grin disarming, on his variety stage.
At its bittersweet soul, “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” is a man’s quiet wrestle with a love gone cold, a daily ache he can’t outrun. “Guess there’s no use in hangin’ ‘round, guess I’ll get dressed and do the town,” Williams sings, his voice a smooth wound, “but I can’t get used to losing you, no matter what I try to do.” It’s not loud grief—it’s routine turned hollow, “same old places” and “same old faces” mocking “plans I made for two,” a heart stuck in a loop of “something I can’t face.” For those who were there, this song is a memory in soft focus—the hum of a hi-fi in a wood-paneled den, the clink of a martini glass at dusk, the way Andy felt like a friend who’d loved and lost beside us. It’s the ’60s in a polished frame—wingtips on a dance floor, a TV flickering with his easy charm, a time when heartbreak wore a tie and smiled through the tears.
More than a hit, “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” was Andy Williams’s mastery distilled, a bridge from his Cadence days to a decade of TV crooning—think The Andy Williams Show, where he made every note a living room guest. It flickered in covers by The Beat in ’80 (No. 1 UK) and lingered in Mad Men’s retro glow, but Andy’s take owned the ache. For us who’ve silvered since those years, it’s a tether to a world of Brylcreem and big bands—when you’d save up for a record at Sears, when his Christmas specials warmed December nights, when music was a hand to hold through love’s quiet falls. Slip that old LP onto the turntable, let it purr, and you’re back—the rustle of a curtain in a spring breeze, the glow of a streetlamp on a lonely walk, the way “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” felt like a loss we all carried, a song that still hums with the grace of letting go, yet never quite doing it.