Tragic Songs of Life is the debut album by American country music duo The Louvin Brothers, released in 1956.

They recorded over ten singles for Capitol, with the earliest all Gospel songs, before "When I Stop Dreaming" became their first secular release in 1955.

Tragic Songs of Life was their Capitol debut,[3] and served as somewhat of a concept album, drawing heavily on artists they admired such as Bill Monroe, The Monroe Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys, and The Callahan Brothers.

Mark Deming stated in his Allmusic review "...this is a landmark of traditional country music that remains powerful more than fifty years after it was recorded.

"[1] Don Yates of No Depression magazine singled out the Louvins' version of “In The Pines” writing "It’s perhaps their most powerful rendering of traditional folk music’s bleak vision of a dark and forlorn land, where love is absent and death is the only certainty.