“I Don’t Care Anymore” was written by Tompall Glaser, the Nebraska-born country singer best known as the leader of Tompall & the Glaser Brothers and as a key Outlaw Country figure of the 1970s. The song was first recorded by Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1958 — one of several Glaser pieces that crossed into bluegrass through the F&S working repertoire of the late 1950s.
The recording most often cited today is Lester Flatt’s 1976 reading with the Nashville Grass on the CMH album A Living Legend (CMH-9002). By 1976 Flatt was nearly two decades past the Foggy Mountain Boys split with Earl Scruggs and was leading the Nashville Grass with Marty Stuart on mandolin and a strong working band. The Living Legend recording is one of the more confident late-period Flatt sides.
The lyric is a hard heartbreak text: the narrator past the point of caring, past begging, past expecting anything from a woman who has long since stopped meeting him halfway. It works as a moderate-tempo singer’s piece in the harder traditional bluegrass register, and the Karl Shiflett band, the Earls of Leicester, and a long list of festival acts have continued to cover it. The harmonic shape is straightforwardly traditional with a memorable tag line.
