This song was the first success for Mark True, an “Air Force brat” who was born in England, lived in a number of American states and eventually studied music composition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. After winning a spot in an Opryland production in 1974, he transferred to tiny Belmont College, a Baptist institution near Nashville’s Music Row that developed a rare music business program. True helped build the college’s first recording studio and engineered the very first session at the educational facility (in recent years, Belmont College has also acquired the old RCA Studio B and is using it for instructional purposes).
Mark signed his first songwriting contract at age 18 with ABC Music. Once that deal was up, Crystal Gayle’s arranger, Charles Cochran, put him in touch with Roger Cook, who signed him to his Pic-A-Lic firm. It was under that agreement that True hit paydirt with “Why Have You Left The One You Left Me For,” a song he wrote in five minutes about his wife’s ex-fiancé.
This guy kept trying to get her back. He would write poems to her and send her cards. Mark was home one day and the mailman showed up with a book of poems the ex-fiancé had written for Mark’s wife. That set Mark to thinking, “What if she did decide to go back with him? What would he say to her?” Then the line just popped out: “Why have you left the one you left me for?” Lyrics quickly followed and the songwriter had the whole thing finished in just five minutes.
Gayle and Reynolds had already recorded eleven songs for the “When I Dream” album, but when they heard True’s demo of “Why Have You Left The One You Left Me For,” they made room for an extra track. Gayle had trouble getting the words in the right order as she learned it. They cut the song twice: once with studio players and, in the final version, with her own road band. This most uncharacteristic of all of Crystal’s hits shot to #1 on the January 27, 1979 Billboard country singles chart. It marked her sixth of an eventual 18 career chart-toppers.
