“Only the Lonely” is a song recorded by Hazel Dickens for her 1983 album “By the Sweat of My Brow,” one of a series of solo records she made for the Rounder label in the 1980s.
Hazel Dickens, from the coal country of West Virginia, was one of the most important figures in bluegrass and old-time music — a pioneering woman performer and a songwriter known for unflinching songs about working people, hard times, and the lives of women. Her solo albums of this period set that fierce, plainspoken voice in spare, traditional arrangements.
“Only the Lonely” is a lament of loneliness sung in Dickens’s stark, mountain-rooted style — a voice that could carry sorrow with unusual force. It stands among the quieter, heartache-centered songs on a record otherwise known for its hard-hitting social material.
