We wrote that about five years ago when I was visiting Kim Williams' cabin in East Tennessee. His brothers Larry and Herschel were over for a cookout. We started messing around with this bluegrass-sounding song. We just started singing about backwoods stuff. Somebody would sing one line and somebody else would sing the next one, so we wrote it by taking turns. It was really quite bizarre the way it happened. I was playing guitar and Kim was keeping rhythm with his fingers on the table. It was really fitting, though, being in the hills of East Tennessee. We wrote it in a matter of 30 minutes or so.
I actually wrote the first part of this in the bathtub. I was getting ready to open a show for Kenny Rogers. It was at night and I was getting ready
to meet the bus. My sister in law and my husband were sitting in the living room. I held onto the idea
for a little while. I didn't finish right away, so I took it to Trey. It's kind of a love song, but it seems like
so many people are caught up in what other people think about them. In this song, the message is, "I
really don't care what other people think about me, as long as you think I'm okay."
I had gone to pick up a take-out order at a Nashville restaurant. It was after lunch and before dinner time, so there was no one there except one man sitting at the bar. While I was waiting for my order, I sat down at the opposite end of
the bar from him. He had a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other. His hands and his head were shaking. I just felt really bad for this man. About the time I got the nerve up to say something to him to make him feel better, he started talking to himself. He was telling somebody off, but there was nobody there. He had all these empty glasses in front of him and a glass with a clear liquid that looked like vodka. When I told the waitress I wanted to pay his tab, she said, "He's only drinking water." When she said that, tears came to my eyes and I thought, "What has driven this man to this if he's just drinking water?" I had no clue, and still don't know what was going on in his life, but it really touched
me. I carried that visual with me for about a month and told the story to Trey. I said, "I should have known, because it didn't look like alcohol." We realized that this was the title.
We wrote this two years ago while a good friend of mine was going through a divorce. I sat everyday and listened to the same story over and over and over. I understood the confusion she felt, the anger and the hurt of being on her own again. I love my best friend so much, and it was hurting me to see her going through a divorce at such an early age. After she moved back to Dallas, I had the idea of "Forgive." I almost felt guilty about having a song idea about this situation, but that's another curse of being a songwriter. You can't go through a day without trying to find a hook somewhere. There's a lot of real life conversation in the song.
I cant say anything else about this song other than it's a masterpiece. I get cold chills everytime I hear this song. I just get jealous as dickens that I didn't write it.
Georgia Middleman is a friend of mine, but I had no idea who wrote it when I heard this. At the time, I was sick of listening to songs. I had heard probably a thousand songs at that time, and the last thing I wanted to do was hear another one. My husband called and said, "I think you need to hear this."
He played it to me over the phone and I was in shock that I was listening to a great song. And it fit so well with where I was in mylife. I relate to those lyrics about thinking I had it all figured out, but life had other plans for me. As a songwriter, we relate to our own songs so much that it's hard to find other songs that you relate to, but this was definitely one of them.
This is an amazing country song, and I can'tbelieve nobody ever recorded it. There had been a couple of major country acts that had it under consideration but it never happened. When I found out it was available, I snatched it right up. I wasn't
going to let it get away from me. If I just saw that title, I'd want to hear the song. The lyrics are nothing but truth.
When I wrote this, my husband Jason was rather new to me. I had just fallen head over heels, so it seemed like everything I was writing was about him and our relationship. The song is about reflecting on the person you're with now, rather than the past times when you wondered if you were ever going to find anybody.
Every woman says this. That's what attracted me to it. I loved the country sound of it, the 6/8 time and everything about it. I loved the chorus when it got to that soaring melody and the line, ''I could stand at the mouth of a canyon." When it got to the hook, I was sold. I think everybody can relate to the title.
The intro to that track came from Trey Bruce and his whole genius head. That was a guitar/voal demo. That's all it was. He lived with it for about a month and created one of the most beautiful records I've ever heard in my life. That's why he's my producer.
This is the old gospel song I first recorded for the soundtrack of the movie, The Apostle. The morning I was scheduled to record this new version, I wokeup and could hardly speak. I knew I was supposed to sing this song, but I really didn't think there was any way I could do it. I called the pastor of my church and told him, "I'm gonna need some help with this." When I got to the studio, I was still having trouble talking. But when I got behind the microphone, I was able to sing it in one take. Then I couldn't talk anymore. It was one of those smallmiracles of life.
That was written about my backyard. I have the cutest backyard. We have a little patio with a table and tiki torches all around it. My Neighbor has a clothes line and their clothes are always hanging on the clothes line. When I think of Pink Flamingos, I immediately think of small towns where people have windmills and other things stuck all over their yards. It's just a carefree song about wanting a simple life.