“Six Months Ain’t Long” is a traditional old-time song that circulated widely in the hillbilly repertoire of the 1920s and 1930s before the Stanley Brothers recorded it. Versions were cut in that era by old-time acts including the Kentucky musicians Leonard Rutherford and Dick Burnett, and by Emry Arthur, who titled his “Six Months in Jail Ain’t Long.”
The lyric is a hard-luck song of confinement and heartbreak — a jilted, jailed, or otherwise trapped narrator measuring out a stretch of time and the lost love behind it. Like much old-time material it has no firm single author and varies from one singer to the next.
The song reached a wider audience through the Stanley Brothers, who recorded it in 1963 during the folk revival. Their version, heard here, is set in the brothers’ stark mountain harmony.
