Leave Them Boys Alone

"Leave Them Boys Alone" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter and musician Hank Williams Jr. with Waylon Jennings and Ernest Tubb. It was released in May 1983 as the second single from Williams' album Strong Stuff. The song reached number six on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. It was written by Williams, Dean Dillon, Gary Stewart, and Tanya Tucker.

Content

The lyrics of the song, much like Williams' "Family Tradition" echo the sentiment that the outlaw singers and their current escapades were antedated by the hard-living honky-tonkers of the 1950s, such as Hank Williams, Sr., and Ernest Tubb, prior to the music being fairly taken over by the Nashville Sound in the 1960s.

Critical reception

Reviewing Strong Stuff for Record magazine, Lee Ballinger dismissed "Leave Them Boys Alone" as the album's "obligatory song about other Southern musicians".