Lonesome, On'ry and Mean is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1973.

Although Jennings had enjoyed a respectable run on the country charts, he felt hemmed in creatively and fumed when RCA told him where and how to record.

In the audio version of his autobiography Waylon, he reflected: "Lyin' there, I started to thinkin' about what I'd won after ten years of bangin' around the honky tonks: my health was shot; I was close to a quarter of a million dollars in debt, and getting deeper in the hole whether I played shows or not; the I.R.S.

Reshen, who would also sign Willie Nelson at Jennings' recommendation, was unimpressed by Nashville's tight inner circle and brought his no-nonsense approach to the negotiations with RCA bosses Jerry Bradley and Chet Atkins.

In his memoir, Jennings wrote that the final meeting between the two parties in Chet Atkins' office hit a stalemate over $25,000 and nobody uttered a word for several minutes.

Although Lonesome, On'ry and Mean was a new start for Jennings, the singer chose to dust off a few older tracks, as Rich Kienzle recalls in the liner notes to the 2003 reissue: The third older cut was the Willie Nelson composition "Pretend I Never Happened," a Ronny Light-produced single released several months earlier, reaching #6 on the country singles chart.

The songwriters that Jennings turned to for his new LP, such as "progressive" country tunesmiths like Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury, reflected his new artistic freedom.

He also made no apologies for his new, brasher sound; in a 1973 interview with Chet Flippo of Rolling Stone, the singer stated, "That's one of the big problems of country music.

In the LP's original liner notes, Chet Flippo of Rolling Stone wrote, "There's nothing faddish or contrived or artificial about him.

Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh said the album, "encouraged fans to think of Jennings not as an old Nashville pro but as a new kind of country antihero - as much a part of the counter-culture, in his own way, as the hippies".