According to biographer
Colin Escott, Ramona Vincent, a crippled woman, wrote the words of the song as a poem and sent it to Williams, who put a melody to it. (According to U.S. Copyright Office, her legal name was Kathleen Ramona Vincent, born 1928). The song was paired with
Fred Rose's novelty "
Fly Trouble", resulting in perhaps the oddest single the singer ever released. The song was recorded at
Castle Studio in
Nashville on August 4, 1947 with Rose producing. Williams was backed by
Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Hermon Herron (steel guitar), Sammy Pruett (lead guitar), Slim Thomas (rhythm guitar), and
Lum York (bass). Hank had scored his first
Billboard hit with "
Move It on Over" but "On the Banks of the Old Ponchartrain" bombed. As Escott notes: :The coupling of "Fly Trouble" and "On the Banks of the Old Ponchartrain" flopped miserably, and in later years Hank would use it as a personal metaphor for a poor selling record. "Sure am glad it ain't another damn 'Ponchartrain'" he'd say when people would congratulate him on a hit. More than anything, it proved how much Rose had yet to learn about Hank's music and his audience. The song tells the story of a criminal who escaped from a west
Texas prison and stopped for a rest on the banks of
Lake Pontchartrain where he falls in love with an unnamed woman only for him to be captured by a policeman and sent back to the prison he previously escaped from. ==Cover versions==