"The Gambler" is a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by several artists, most famously by American country singer Kenny Rogers. Schlitz wrote the song in August 1976 when he was 23 years old. It took two years of shopping the song around Nashville before Bobby Bare recorded it on his album Bare at the urging of Shel Silverstein. Bare's version did not catch on and was never released as a single, so Schlitz recorded it himself, but that version failed to chart higher than No. 65. Other musicians took notice and recorded the song in 1978, including Johnny Cash, who put it on his album Gone Girl. It was Rogers, however, who made the song a mainstream success. His version was a No. 1 country hit, and made its way to the pop charts at a time when country songs rarely crossed over. It was released in November 1978 as the title track from his album The Gambler, and won him the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980. Rogers is accompanied on the recording by the vocal group The Jordanaires. In 2006, Schlitz featured in Rogers' career retrospective documentary The Journey, in which he praised both Rogers' and producer Larry Butler's contributions to the song, stating "they added several ideas that were not mine, including the new guitar intro". Content The lyrics describe a narrator meeting a gambler one evening while riding aimlessly on a train. The gambler can tell from the look on the narrator's face that he is in poor circumstances and offers him advice in exchange for a drink of whisky. After the narrator obliges with the whisky and a cigarette, the gambler describes his outlook on life using poker metaphors: Every situation, says the gambler, can be played for better or worse. The trick is to recognize what is worth keeping, choose one's battles, and not dwell on losses. The gambler then falls asleep and passes away, leaving the narrator to ponder his wisdom. Inspiration On the American Top 40 radio program of February 3, 1979, Casey Kasem reported that Schlitz said of "The Gambler": "Something more than me wrote that song. I'm convinced of that. I really had no idea where the song was coming from. There was something going through my head, which was my father. It was just a song, and it somehow filtered through me. Six