Making Believe is a country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 song written by Jimmy Work

Jimmy Work

Jimmy Work was an American country musician best known for the country standard "Making Believe".Work was born in Ohio but moved to Dukedom, Tennessee with his family at age two...

 and best known for its chart-topping version in 1955 by Kitty Wells

Kitty Wells

Ellen Muriel Deason , known professionally as Kitty Wells, is an American country music singer. Her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country star...

. The song is consistently on lists of all-time greatest country music songs and has been covered by scores of artists over the past fifty years, including Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, Wanda Jackson

Wanda Jackson

Wanda Lavonne Jackson is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist who had success in the mid-1950s and 60s as one of the first popular female rockabilly singers and a pioneering rock and roll artist...

, Connie Francis

Connie Francis

Connie Francis is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw...

, Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, Ernest Tubb

Ernest Tubb

Ernest Dale Tubb , nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" , marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music...

, Social Distortion

Social Distortion

Social Distortion is an American punk rock band formed in 1978 in Fullerton, California. The band currently consists of Mike Ness , Jonny Wickersham , Brent Harding and David Hidalgo, Jr...

, Skeeter Davis

Skeeter Davis

Mary Frances Penick , better known as Skeeter Davis, was an American country music singer best known for crossover pop music songs of the early 1960s. She started out as part of The Davis Sisters as a teenager in the late 1940s, eventually landing on RCA Records. In the late '50s, she became a solo...

 and Volbeat. The song is occasionally called (and performed as) "Makin' Believe".

Singer-songwriter Work released the song as a single in February 1955 on Dot Records

Dot Records

Dot Records was an American record label and company that was active between 1950 and 1977. It was founded by Randy Wood. In Gallatin, Tennessee, Wood had earlier started a mail order record shop, known for its radio ads on WLAC in Nashville and its R&B air personality Bill "Hoss" Allen...

, climbing to #5 on Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

s country music jukebox charts. A month later, country music queen Kitty Wells released the song as well as a single which hit #2 on the country charts and remained there an astonishing 15 weeks, still a record for a song in the runner-up position on the country Billboard charts. The song was blocked to #1 by the 21-weeks long In the Jailhouse Now

In the Jailhouse Now

"In The Jailhouse Now" is an American novelty blues song originally found in vaudeville performances from the early 20th century, usually credited to Jimmie Rodgers...

 by Webb Pierce

Webb Pierce

Webb Michael Pierce was one of the most popular American honky tonk vocalists of the 1950s, charting more number one hits than any other country artist during the decade. His biggest hit was "In The Jailhouse Now," which charted for 37 weeks in 1955, 21 of them at number one...

.

The song is a melancholy ballad about not getting over a former lover. The singer daydreams that they are still loved by the old flame even while fully knowing "you'll never be mine" again. The song was a perfect match for Kitty Wells' legendary wistful vocal style and is perhaps her most popular song outside of her career record "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

"It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" is a 1952 country song written by J. D. "Jay" Miller, and originally recorded by Kitty Wells. It was an answer song to the Hank Thompson hit "The Wild Side of Life."...

".

The song received new attention with no less than three single releases in 1977-78, The Kendalls

The Kendalls

The Kendalls was an American country music duo, consisting of Royce Kendall and his daughter Jeannie Kendall . Between the 1960s and 1990s, they released sixteen albums on various labels, including five on Mercury Records...

 hitting #80 with the song, their first release on Ovation Records. A few months later, Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...

 climbed to #7 with her version. The following January, Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...

 received considerable airplay for his version, which was the B side of his then current release "Running Kind".

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 13 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Lynn. Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he...

 and Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty , born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, was an American country music artist. He also had success in early rock and roll, R&B, and pop music. He held the record for the most number one singles of any act with 55 No. 1 Billboard country hits until George Strait broke the record in 2006...

 released a duet version of the song in 1988 and used it as the title track for their final album together. Although the song was not a radio hit for them, it was a popular number at their concerts and the album sold fairly well via television ads.

Jimmy Work

Chart (1955)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	5

Kitty Wells

Chart (1955)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	2

The Kendalls

Chart (1977)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	80

Emmylou Harris

Chart (1977)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	8
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Top Singles	87