Songfacts®:

• "I'm Sorry" was written by Ronnie Self, who was a signed songwriter and performer for Columbia and Decca records through the 1950s and '60s. His only charted single was the 1958 "Bop-A-Lena" (#68). Brenda Lee's covers of his songs were his greatest successes.
  
  Self and Lee shared a manager, Dub Allbritten, whose business savvy helped make Lee a star. He tried to do the same for Self, but the rockabilly singer's wild antics and penchant for alcohol and amphetamines thwarted his efforts. Allbritten is also credited as a cowriter on most of Self's tunes despite the fact that he wasn't a songwriter at all.
  
  "I don't think he was trying to be dishonest," Lee mused in her 2002 autobiography Little Miss Dynamite: The Life And Times Of Brenda Lee. "That was the only way Dub could hope to recoup all the money he'd invested in that crazy guy."
• Guys, you might want to be careful about falling in love with this voice. Brenda Lee was just 15 years old when she recorded the song! Decca records actually held back release on it for a few months while they pondered the legalities of having a teenager sing with such passion about affairs of the heart. In fact, Brenda Lee was a child star, beginning her career at the age of six by winning a school talent show whose reward was to perform live on the local Atlanta radio show Starmakers Revue. She was born and raised in a poor family in the red-clay belt of Georgia, so even as a tot she was the chief breadwinner for the family.
• This song is notable for being one of the first examples of the "Nashville Sound." This sound focuses on stringed instrument sections, backing vocals, and a crooning lead singer - sort of a fusion between country, pop, and a dash of doo-wop. It was pioneered by RCA and Columbia Records in the mid-1950s.
• "I'm Sorry" was Brenda Lee's first #1 hit, coming just after "Sweet Nothin's," which made its mark at #4. Along with "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," it's one of her signature songs and one of the finest songs of the teen pop genre.
• Lee's producer Owen Bradley dismissed the ballad as being too short and repetitive but relented when they had some studio time left. The musicians worked up an arrangement on the spot and Bradley instructed the violinists he hired for the session to answer Lee's vocal with a string embellishment. But the eight-bar song was still too short, so Lee had to get creative.
  
  "It needed to be 16 bars," the singer recalled in Little Miss Dynamite. "That's when I remembered the recitations I'd heard the Ink Spots doing when I'd appeared with them in Vegas. We all agreed that I should do a spoken verse in the middle of the song."
  
  Lee also incorporated a slowed-down version of the hiccuping effect she'd been using on her rockabilly records.
  
  "It just came naturally," she continued. "It just seemed like that 'Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh yes' belonged in there."
• Early in her career, many radio DJs thought Lee was Black and played her tunes on the R&B stations. The assumption worked in her favor and she landed a handful of hits on the R&B chart, including "I'm Sorry," which went to #4.
• This was used in these TV shows:
  
  Woke ("Prayers For Kubby" - 2020)
  The Simpsons ("Woo-Hoo Dunnit?" - 2019)
  The End Of The F***ing World ("Episode #1.3" - 2017)
  Two And A Half Men ("Last Chance To See Those Tattoos" - 2004)
  The Wire ("Ebb Tide" - 2003)
  
  And these movies:
  
  The Rhythm Section (2020)
  Domino (2005)
  The Princess And The Warrior (2000)
  Casino (1995)
  Tommy Boy (1995)
  This Boy's Life (1993)
  The Fisher King (1991)
• Still nervous about "I'm Sorry," Decca issued the tune as the B-side to the uptempo number "That's All You Gotta Do," but DJs around the country started playing the ballad side first. As a result, both songs reached the Top 10 on the Hot 100.