#71 - Tom Douglas - Wrote "The House That Built Me" and more

take thirteen years. But yeah, now I've been back twenty years. So it's a uh it is. You know, for some people it seems very direct, but for me, it was a very circuitous route. So one of the things I like to do is kind of let people know what they're what they're getting here. I'm gonna play a few of your songs and then we'll just kind of start back over. So you wrote The House that Built Me, which is just a game angel for anybody, And we'll

come back around to that one in a second. So the House that Built Me Southern Voice with Tim I run to you from Lady A. I mean, I have a lot of them I'm just getting people a taste here. They know the greatness that they're hearing. Raise them up, sailing sco. It's just too key, class of you in making it too some good stuff and I'm gonna hit him with some some other stuff in a minute. Anyway, So you come here in nineteen eight to do what well,

you know, I grew so I grew up in Atlanta. Um, I grew up in a household where uh, education and job security were really there with a two pre eminent uh you know, parts of my life and my childhood. My that's kind of what what was preached to me by my parents. My father was very musical and love music, and really he loved songs. I mean, kind of looking back, I have some perspective. So music was a big part of our household. But um, you know, I mean my

mom worked, my dad worked. I mean, they really did a lot to try to get me educated. So it sounds like they wouldn't want you to have a creative job where there's not a lot of security. No, it would be I mean for me to have told my parents that I was gonna like so I go to college and graduate school. And I really did try to assimilate into the real world. And I did for a

while until I was twenty seven. Then I just thought, you know, the call of Nashville was so strong that I just I didn't really have a great plan, but I talked a publisher in Atlanta into letting me pitches songs in Nashville. It was Bill Lowry. It was a kind of revered publisher in Atlanta. And I came up here, and you know, I just got enough money to pitch songs and I started meeting people. I just I just

wanted to be in Nashville. It was you know, it's the it's the it's almost like the siren, you know in the in mythology where she's calling you, beckoning you. Why do you think that? Why did you want to come to Nashville so that well, I just I think it represented songs. It just, uh, were you writing the whole time you're working? No, Well, I mean, you know, I've written since I was twelve, so I've always you know, had a poetic band. I've always loved stories, I've always

loved songs. I never aspired to be an artist, but I just, you know, I just always wrote. It was just it was the way that I looked at life, and uh, you know, uh, it's it was just kind of the the filter through which, you know, I saw everything through songs and through stories. So it was very just second nature to me. I didn't realize that it was kind of unique. I thought everybody looked at life like that, but um, you know, I just was like, you know, I was twenty seven. I didn't really I

just I just had to do it. It was just kind of an unexplainable desire to to be here, just to just to get here. So, you know, I just kind of loaded up and I just came got an apartment and just that I just I just wanted to soak up the sights and the sounds and the people and what was it? What was what's Nashville like in nineteen eighty and who was here? Like, who were the big names? Was Nashville like nine when you moved? Well, it was gosh, I hadn't really thought that much about

that in a long time. It was like what was happening? Well, okay. So the reason why I'm a little disconnected from that is because, strangely enough, I did not grow up listening to country music. So I grew up listening to you know, the I mean, I think everybody thinks they grew up in the Golden era of music, but I grew up with like literally, in August of nineteen sixty four, the first concert I went to was Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

I saw the Beatles to play, so um. Then I grew up with you know, the Beatles and you know and Elton John and Springsteen and Jackson Brown. I mean that was really I grew up loving the songs of Jimmy Webb and Chris Christofferson and Hank Williams. But I didn't I didn't listen to country music. So I came up here and I still, you know, it was like a fish out of water. I didn't really know what was going on in music. Row um, and looking back, I don't know, I'd have to think about what was

going on. I wonder what kind of piqued my curiosity. You saw the Beatles in nineteen in a in a stadium. How does that sound? Because the technology of one playing a baseball statim is not that good anyway, even today, it's it's not the greatest environment for music, and they do. But then, right, could you hear them over the screen.

I mean, um, I I still it's indelibly etched in my mind, maybe a quarter mile Like I got on a bus, a yellow school bus with twenty other kids my age, and a couple of mothers and a couple of teachers, and we just went to see the Beatles. I mean it was, I mean, it was like, I mean, so this is like, you know, this is Elvis, you know, creates a revolution in nineteen fifty four, so this is

like only ten years later. And I mean literally, girls screaming, or was a quarter mile before you got to the stadium. You could hear the screen, you could hear the screams, and it was I mean from the moment they started until you know, until we got a quarter mile away. The girls screamed and literally they had like four vox amps and they were singing over the p a of the of the Brave Stadium. That has to sound terrible now again to today's standards, But do you remember hearing

and knowing the songs was the screen? It was? It was it was a transcendent experience. It was it was just it was just something that, um, I'll never forget. It was. I mean, it was truly it was. It was mysterious and magical, and uh, I mean it was. I don't know, it's it's sounded amazing, you know, even though you couldn't hear them, it was almost like they

were miming. But you you know, it's funny sometimes you can hear the songs in your head, which is almost as good as you know, somebody singing if you know the songs that well. So, so you were about how old I was? I think, I mean so I was born in nineteen fifty three, so I was eleven. Well as an eleven year old, your folks are cool with you going to watch the I can't imagine that. I don't. I have no idea how my parents let me do it. I mean it was, it was, It was be it was,

but you know, it's a different time. It was pretty innocent and up and as I say, you know, my father loved it. I mean he kind of lived vicariously through me. I think. So, I mean they were like, didn't seem like that big of a deal. But now looking back, like what I let my eleven year old children go to Bridgestone and see Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber, I mean I'd have to go with him, you know,

or my wife would. But anyway, yeah, so I mean that was kind of my that was my start, and uh, you know, and then I get to National nineteen eighty from eighty four and I really I just kind of wander around. I just meet people. I pitched songs. I'm learning how to write songs, and you know, I uh, I tour managed a band that went to Europe. And you went to Europe. Oh yeah, I mean I was the worst tour manager in the history of concert promotion

in nineteen eight Sorry sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Right in the early eighties, you flew on a airplane across the ocean? Did that not scare the How about to you? But you could still smoke cigarettes? How about that? So I would sit on the back of a plane. There was a curtain separating first class from economy, and you know, people are just smoking cigarettes on a plane. How crazy is that? I guess not that crazy because it was

always allowed and understood just the way it was. I get scared flying over water right now, with technology, I cannot I can't imagine, Like, so you're going, you're you're doing anything to eat? It sounds like you're just trying to Yeah, so I'm just getting by. I'm giving blood at a blood bank. Um, you know, you're just doing whatever you're doing. But you know it's thrilling and exciting and uh but at the end of the time, so you know. So now it's nineteen eighty four and I'm

thirty one. So I've got all this education. All my friends are yeah, you know, I have gotten married. They've got their first job and their second promotion, and you know, and I just feel like, golly, now I've wasted ten years of my life. It was it was very wrestling. Do you have any songs at this point that I

had done anything at all? Um? And I mean it was really it was you know, I mean, Nashville's hard today, but you know, when you don't have anything going on that look from the outside looking in, Nashville is a very lonely place. So you know, at that time, I just so I got up. I gotta do something else. So I had met my wife to be, we got engaged, and I moved to Texas and tried to put all this behind me, and I got in the real estate business. So you were out, you were never coming back. I

was just that was what broke you though? What was the final straw? Well, I mean, honestly, I mean there you know, there's always, you know, parallel things going on in your life. My father had gotten ill, and so I brought my father up from Atlanta to live with me. And really the combination of my father being ill, caring for him, you know, nothing going on in music, making

no money. I was thirty one, and you know, I've always I've always had this vision of like a scoreboard clock, and I always see this occasionally, you know, I'll see the scoreboard clock and the numbers are just winding down, and it always feels like I'm running out of time. And so it's like the scoreboard clock. It doesn't always it's not always as big as it is. But at that time, I remember the thinking, man, I am, I've wasted time, and now I'm running out of time. I've

got my father. So the truth is, I mean, the combination of you know, the demoralization of being in Nashville and caring for my father, I just said, I gotta do something different. So my I went to Texas and moved in with my sister and brother in law, who graciously allowed my father not to move in with him.

I was like, I gotta start all over again. When that was and so you started selling, well, I got in commercial real estate so and as poorly as I've done in music, I really the real estate commercial real estate world was terrible. Because you're too young to remember this, but interest rates went up to like interest rates today or four and a half percent, and there was a savings and loan crisis, and so everything really just stopped. So I was kind of just spinning my wheels again

being in Texas. But you know, I was getting married and you know, starting to have children. I mean, you know, I was. I was doing fine. It wasn't like I was, you know, in some cataconic, catatonic depression, but I was just I was just starting over now. I really, honestly, I really did. I tried to put the whole music thing behind me. I didn't really talk to people about it, and I didn't write for uh, you know, a couple

of years. And then I mean, and the truth is, so this is now probably nineteen ninety and I was cold calling a shopping center and I was saying, I'm Tom Douglas with Cornerstone real Estate. At least the shopping center down the road. If you got any real estate needs, I'd be delighted to help you. At the same time, I was literally having this conversation with God, and I was saying, it just seems strange that now I'm thirty eight or thirty nine and the passion for music was

still there. It was underlying, you know, the soundtrack was playing in my mind. I thought, it seems strange that I would be cynical and jaded at thirty nine and cold calling a shopping center in August and Texas and really and I had an epiphany and it was like, God said, well, you've worshiped the creation, which is the song, instead of me. How's that working out? It was, I mean, it was startling. I was like, well, you're right, I've taken this thing, which is in and of itself is good.

I've kind of made it an idol. I really had to destroy the idol of songs. So it's talk about a wag walker for one second. One of the great things about doing this podcast is I can do it from home and my dog is here at the house, which is different than the radio show. My dog doesn't get to come up to the radio show. But I do love my dog and if you listen to me

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they come, or you cannot be home. Wagons and must have. If you're a dog owner, you can get your first wag for free. To just take theWord text the word bones to two five, three to four. Text the word bones to two five three two four and you get your first wag. But just I searched wag wag walker and bam, there you go. You got it. Okay, So you come back? And what year to come back to Nashville? I moved here in nine back in so so, but

you know so, but so. I don't know if if you want to go chronologically, but but so what happened was I kind of slowly regained my love for music and started writing songs again and feeling like I was always starting over. That's when I went to SMU early one Saturday morning and probably and you know, I started writing the song Little Rock, which really was just autobiographical.

I just Colin Ray, Colin right. I played little bit of this is Apple marketsas that we played this, Yeah, I'm a stone baby, wait and see, I got this one small problem here in little without you, So you're right this when you're still living in Texas. And then I go to odd joint songwriter associations everywhere I went.

I went to Austin. In the summer of ninety three, reconnected with Paul Whorley, whom I had known as a guitar player when I lived in in Nashville, you know, nine years earlier, and um gave him a cassette at the cocktail party, expecting him never to listen to it. In about two weeks ago, by any calls him one days, I've been listened to a couple of these songs. I think I like him. What you let me run with it and see if I can get anything going. And so Paul signed me to Sony Publishing and the first

song I got recorded was a little rock. The first song we got recorded at forty one years old is this monster right here. Everybody knows the song. I saw Adam Craig when he was on your show. Yeah, I think you just asked him and I was like, I was like, can you play calling? He Adam Craig has that calling rady text you his voice. I mean this song I hear it reminds in my childhood, like that's how strong this song is. And in fact that you wrote it handed it off. I never thought you get

a call? When did it go? Hey? And how far along was calling in his career, Colin, he had had he'd had loved me and he had and he'd had Uh is it in this life? He'd had it. He'd had a couple of hits, I mean, and he was everybody loved his voice, and Paul was producing him, and yeah, I mean it was you know, so I mean after you know, I mean, Paul basically signed me just based on that song. And uh you know, miraculously column Ree recorded it. So does that song end up being? Is

that what makes you move to Nashville? Well, but then you know, I had such a mistrust for Nashville, which is I think healthy that I commuted up here one week a month for four years and then move my family back in n for four years. You commuted back and forth to Nashville. I still stay in the real estate business. I was sure it wasn't gonna work. I just thought this was a one off. And uh uh, I'm still not sure it's gonna work. But what a

one off? Like that's a monster. Okay, so you move back thinking I can make a good run of this again, what makes you think, okay, I have to move back now? Well, you know, it was forty five and I've been up here enough, I've made a few relationships. Sony is the only publisher I've ever had, and so they they made

it possible. I mean, so now I'm forty five, i have three children, and uh, you know, kind of my second renewal was coming up with Sony and they said, you know, we really think you could do this, but it would be better for you and for us if you were here. And so they made it possible. And I was. My father had had had just passed away, and it was almost like I had a clean break, just to start a start out all over again. See you moved to Nashville. What's your first taste of success

as a Nashville song right? Well, and then Colin Ray recorded a song called Love Remains, and uh, you know, and the gift. I mean, it was still slow going because everything I've ever done has been it's just it's it's it's it's really left of center. I've never really been able to go right down the middle of the fairway. I'm either on the far left or the far right. But it seems like so far at least with the Calling Ray stuff. And we'll get to the rest of it.

You actually make the fairway, like what you do. When it becomes successful, it shifts everything else to it. Well sometimes, you know, I mean I've I've had to the hardest thing over all the years, you know. I mean, now I've written like songs in twenty four years. But the hardest thing is just convincing myself to still do what I do. I still have such a tendency to follow trends or try to be something that I'm not, and I I really have tried, but it's almost like, you know,

a piano vocal with a cello is like that. Really, that's that's almost all I can do every song. It's kind of that. Tell me about this one here you pretty familiar voice. Yeah, well that that was again, you know, I mean, I wouldn't have a career without Paul Whorley. So that was again Paul, And I mean, I uh so,

I do love Springsteen. I love you too. I love Dylan and the you know, the the device that they use in a lot of songs, or you know, the verses or vignettes, three completely unrelated vignettes and it's tied together by like a two line chorus. I mean, like grown men don't cry as I don't know why they say grown men don't cry. I don't know why they say grown mean don't cry. Loves the only house big enough for all the pain of the world, loves the only house. I mean, it's like I love songs like that.

That's that's kind of in my my d n A because I've listened to so many songs like that. So I but I start all these songs on piano and then I have to find somebody somehow too, you know, to translate it, to make it, you know, you know, make it sound like a record. Um. So that happens in the studio sometimes. But I mean even the house that built me as the demo was a piano vocal which I have here in the demo, the sone of fuck that's this place a feeling, the sprokenness side, and

my song he down here. It is like I'm someone else, a dount that maybe I could find mysel who's singing that's me, that like could just come in. What are you talking about? You're not a vocalist. That's like something Bruce Springsteen meets Tom Wade kind of from the house. Listen to that build Me, Mama. I buy that version the well, so all I can do is like if I do that, and then I have to the success I've had. I mean, now I've co written most of these songs, as you know, like that was with the

Great Alan Shambling. Uh, the I have to I mean, if it's if it's, if it's what I do, which is the piano vocal, I have to then find an artist that can take that original but then translate it to you know, to what they do, and that that doesn't often happen. So when you make this demo and you do you shop it or does someone go this is perfect? Well we you know, we were allan and

I worked on that for seven years. Uh you know, we started it, uh and then we demoed it, turned it into the publisher and they were like, yeah, that's cool, which you know, it's like code's big for this will never see the light of day, and where it's maddening. You know, you think everybody's raging idiot and only the look in the mirror and realized that you're the raging idiot.

So yeah, um, but we worked on it, we redemoed it, you know, and we just kept we knew that there was something there and the truth is, we had too much detail. And at the very end, so you know, seven years later from when we started, we just laid the lyrics down on the coffee table and said, what

is wrong. There's something that's not connecting, and we didn't have uh, well, we had to take out some detail, and we didn't have If I can just come in, I swear I'll leave, won't take nothing but a memory. We didn't have that, which is the line that precedes the hook. And as you know, the line that precedes the hook is often more important or as important as the hook itself. Why would you say this song for

seven years? Well, you know, I mean I love songs, I really do, you know, and it's well it's it's a love hate relationship. But songs that are unfinished, they just they kind of drive me crazy. And um, I don't do that with all songs, but there are certain songs that you're just like loves the Only House took It took years. Um, you know, multiple demos, and you know, you just you just you just have to you know, you just have a feeling about certain songs and you

just gotta stay with it. You know. Rewriting really does help with a lot, you know in songs. I mean, time does make some songs better. I'm curious to know that's we're talking about the house that built me. It took that long. How did you know you were done? And then when do you make that move to go okay, now really what I'm done? Yeah? Can we get an artist?

I don't you know, it's almost like I think for the songwriter, it's almost not up to us to even ask that question, you know, we're so we have to be all process and detach ourselves from the end result. So it's almost like, alright, so we we wrote it, demoed it, turned it in. Nothing wrote it, demo turned it in, nothing wrote it, demoed it, turned it in.

You know, the siren screamed and the red lights flashed, and that's when we knew, you know, it's I mean, everything we do is kind of based on what four other people in the world think. So it's if though, if if the bill rings of those four of the people, then we're good. If not, then we just have to keep going. So is Miranda the first one to put it on hold? Well, I mean it honestly, it was one of those like you know, it was you know, it was like an atomic bomb. I mean, it was

one of those palpable reactions where everybody loved it. Um you know, went on hold for literally everybody at the same time. And of course we were trying to get the song to Blake Shelton and you know, so the story goes, so Sony Terry Wakefield plays it for Scott Hendricks, who's producing Blake Shelton. Scott Hendrick sends the uh, you know, a tape or a CD with ten songs on it

to Blake Shelton every week to listen to songs. He comes back from tour one wind swept Oklahoma night, he puts the CD in his truck and he's going down this highway and third song in it's the House of Building Me. His girlfriend at the time, starts weeping and he says, baby, what's wrong, And she says, that's my story. And he said, well, if that's your story, maybe that's

your song. So if you want to get a song to Miranda Lambert, you work on it seven years, you pitch it to everybody, get it on hold for Blake Shelton, and Miranda hears it. So it's it's a it's a mysterious. Uh event, I have no idea how to get a song to Miranda Lambert. I really don't. So you get words, she's cutting the song, and at that point is that she's cutting it and we think it could be a single for the radio or is it Jess, she's cutting

a song. She's cutting a song. But I mean, you know, most songwriters and I don't know, we really are fans. I mean we're fans of music, and we're fans of country artists, and we really we love country music. So everybody loves, loved and loves Miranda. And so the fact that as great a songwriter as she is, that she was cutting a song that she didn't write was you know,

an equal honor. And so, you know, the producer Franklindell called me, you know, after she recorded it, and he came, you know, to his office and played it for him, and it was so stark. It was like, I mean, it was like it was like two guitars and a vocal. It was like I was like, I literally have said, you're not gonna put any drums on it. I mean, it was like it was just it was so like just bear that I was honestly I was. I was

probably probably was discouraged. I was like, oh man, this is this is I don't know what this is, but this is it just doesn't sound like anything that i'd really heard before in country music. But thank goodness, they were true to their ideals and their art. And for both of you, Miranda and for you, this this is a career changer. Yeah it's it's yeah, yeah, it's a career changer. It certainly is, uh for Alan and me, and uh yeah, I mean it was, yeah, it was.

I mean everything about it was just phenomenal. I'm gonna play it and to hear you talk about it and to hear it right here, just this place, it's broken when you hear it right now, removed a bit, yea, removed from the process, removed from the awards, Like, what do you think right now when you hear it's just

I mean, it's it's goose bumps. It's just it's something that you know, it's just it's I think it's that's what music is it it um you know her, she really has made the song her own, which is the ultimate compliment to a songwriter, and that's Miranda song. And it's just that's the greatest honor I think you can have as a writer. And it's you know, it's just it does what art is supposed to do, which is it It reduces our defenses. It opens us up and

helps us not feel numb and feels something again. And so much of life is all about numbing us, you know, in the chaos of life. The headlines. Uh, it's it's it's a numbing you know. Uh, that's a numbing process. And that's I think art. That's what art does. It It reminds us to feel something again when you have a song like that and it's that big of a hit, and you've already had hits. We'll play some of the other other ones too, But do people start knocking on

the door a lot more? You know what you would think? So, I mean we, you know, were Alan and I both we thought, all right, we're gonna try to leverage this to write with John Legend or Beyonce or Adele or you know, kind of you had visions of grandeur, and honestly, none of that materialized. I mean like nothing, it was like and I still don't I don't know why. Now.

Oddly enough, over over time, you know, allan and I thought, you know, within the first year, we're gonna get all these very fascinating co writes, and it just it really didn't happen. I mean, we had, you know, we were able to write songs, but I don't know. I think we I think Allen and I got a little lost in the in the in the in the tidal wave of the song. Tell me about this one here, because I got a lot of them that what you talk about.

I run to you from Lady Eggs. See you're right this with them, Yeah, all three of them, all three of them. So you know, as the publisher sets you up with the next big thing, you know, weekly, the next big thing in Nashville, there's a buzz all of a sudden, there's this fresh faced trio with kind of a crazy name, and um so that you know, Lady Annabellum is coming to your house in two weeks. So,

I mean, and I love what they had done. I've heard their demos and I think I've seen them around playing and so you know, I'm as a professional songwriter, I'm supposed to have great ideas. That's why they're coming to you. So they show up and it's like, you know, with the successive day. I'm like, the more time I have to prepare air for something more paralyzed, I've become. So I had I couldn't run, I couldn't rhyme blue

with you. So I'm running in the Nashville Marathon. Oddly enough, the weekend before, I followed this guy for five miles. He's got to run this town on the back of his T shirt. So I'm thinking metaphorically symbolically, I run this town like the mayor, like a mafia boss, like you know, from point A to point being. I'm delirious following this guy. I developed an intense hatred for the guy. Monday morning, they show up and they're gonna come at ten.

I'm sick to my stomach. I'm thinking this, how is this possible? I've got and I have no ideas, and so literally they came, you know, eager, expectant, you know, for me to have a you know, at least a decent idea, and uh. I literally I put my hands down on the piano and up saying, you know, I run from haye and I run from prejudice. And as I was even singing that, I was thinking, I don't even know what it means, and I'm I wrote it.

I wrote these words, and I opened up my my eyes to think they're packing their briefcases and leaving and they're like, man, that is that is brilliant. Of course, I said, I've been saving that for you for week. So unfortunately they hung in there and that was But you know, it's very poetic. It's odd words. You know, it's prejudice, pessimist. I mean, it's it's I love poetry. I'm really I'm I'm crazy about words, and uh, you know, I mean, words are important, They're important to me. But

I really think people come to songs. I think I think people think the first I mean you would. I'd be curious to see what you say about this. So let me make a gross, sweeping generalization. Rhythm is the foundation of songs. What do you say to that. I think they a lot of songs that I love and I have no idea what the words are. But but I think more importantly than melody or chords or production,

it's rhythm. Rhythm really is what rhythm is what draws us in um and I have really I haven't really paid attention to that through the last twenty four years. But the longer I'm doing this, the more and more I'm I'm at least paying attention to rhythm. There's this song now, yeah, if you're desposito Desposito, it's like the new most dream song ever, YouTube song ever. It's all Spanish. I don't know why I love it. It's got a rhythm of this. Oh yeah, I have I heard about

it because it's the most stream song. Yeah, and again you say that I don't know a single word of its fascinating, but I listened to the whole thing and I'm like, yeah, do you get it? Like this is this my jam? I feel it like I know what. I don't know what they're saying, but I know what they're trying to say. Well, you're you're you know how it makes you feel, which is you know that. That's what they often say is that I'm not really I don't really remember what he said, but I know I

remember how he made me feel. That's a lot of times that's what music. Does you teach songwriting? Well, yes, how do you teach songwriting? Like I want to take your class? Right? Well, I really specifically it's lyric writing, so you know, we do get into the whole thing

of songwriting. But I still am affiliated with Belmont. Um, I love Belmont, But I taught lyric writing with my co talk with a friend of mine for five years, and um, you know, really, I mean lyric writing is uh, you know, it's just trying to get people to not edit what they do and just you have to kind

of start free form. Um. I mean like literally, if we were going through an exercise would be like, let's you and I go to the Frist Museum and let's see whatever exhibit is there, and let's walk around those rooms and let's just let's just find a painting or a sculpture that means something to you that you just you just like, and then let's come back and maybe take a picture of it, and let's write a short story that you know that illuminates whatever this picture happens

to be. And you know, so you write two and or fifty words and then you say, okay, so you know, if like, what's the main point from that tour or in fifty word essay, uh, you know, it's you know, it's you know, it's fear of flying. Uh, and you know, and so you just kind of start, uh, you know, lyric writing particularly is just it's just getting in touch with who you are, giving yourself permission to feel. And um, I think there are two types of songs and two

kinds of songwriters. I'm always trying to remember something, and I think most people are trying to forget something. So every song I write is really about remembrance. But I mean the majority of songs that you play on your radio show, I think are about forgetting. Example of each place, Well, um, like what's the what's the number one song? And take um uh, take Thomas Rhett and Mary Morris a song. Okay, So that's that's about I think that's that's the whole thing.

Makes you forget something, it's your uh. I mean, if I were to put myself, you know, in the mind of the writers, they're just they're they're just it's it's just about one small unique experience, which is it's a moment in time. It's a relationship, it's a thing, and it's it's you're not it's there's no there's no past and there's no future. It's just all right now. So it's to me, it's a disconnect from you know, from the before, and a disconnect from the after um, I

mean any of those songs. I mean, the House of Built Me is you know, I'm trying to I've gotten lost and i can't remember where I'm from or to whom I belong, and it's just about coming back home and remembering who you are. We play this one here, Keith and Church when you rode this was it written

for two people? You? No? No, And I mean honestly, Jeffrey Steele and I walked in on Jaren Johnston, who's an amazing songwriter in the being Cadillac three, and Jared kind of had this thing started and he had he had the title. So Jeffrey and I just were like

kids in a candy store. And all all we started do is we just we just started every I mean you'd like literally we just sat there and thought, let's connect everything that could possibly connected with the words raise them up, and let's just fill the verses full with that. So raise up a glass, raise up a sale, raise up a you know, raise a toast, you know, raise up a flag, you know, raise up a child. It's just I mean that that's that is just kind of a free form association of of of one of three

words raise them up, did that would feel good? And completely finished it? Yeah? That was that was That was quick. It was one day Jaran does these amazing little demos and um, I mean I think we played it for a few people. But then when we heard Keith loved it, that was amazing. And but then, I mean, then we have heard this through the you know, through the years.

I don't I mean Keith didn't say this, but I've heard people say that he got a little bit it uncomfortable with the fact that he's Australian and there's a patriotic verse and he was like, I don't know if I can pull this off in an Australian gasling about you know, fist black and blue, fight for the truth? Can you can? He sing? And I think it's the producer, like Nathan Chapman said, well, what if we got, you know, somebody to come in and sing it with you? And

I think he just said that's brilliantly. So I don't know if that was Keith's idea or Nathan's, but somebody had a great idea to get Eric Church involved and that was that was That was amazing. Nobody boy American and Eric Church, That's right. It's about as American as a Ya's Wow, what a story. I love this George Straight song I got and to get George the song, well, George Straight loves Keith Gadus. Keith Gaddis is a real He's a real cowboyot so that's I wrote that with Keith.

And I mean, I'm not ain't this to be disingenuous. Honestly, I sat there while Keith kind of wrote that song, and I just was like, that's great, that's great. Can I get you more coffee? That's amazing? Um, And he does, you know, I mean Keith Gaddis he you know, he still is an artist, but I mean he's he just he you know, he just bleeds that West Texas you know,

cattle rancher, which is George Straight. So you say that that you sat there, But if you're writing, you know, and you're a lot of time, you know, a thousands sounds of songs, does it kind of balance out where they're also songs that you wrote and somebody else has sat there? Well yeah, and and yes, yes, I mean there are days where you're the editor in their days where you're the artist in the room. Um, so you just you just kind of there can't be I think

you can't. There can't be two artists they compete, and there can't be two editors. Somebody's got to take the lead. So I have done this long enough that I really I do want to facilitate whatever's that. We just want to honor the song. What does the song need? That's what I want to you know, that's what I want to do. That's really interesting that you you say it

like that, because no one said it before. Where you're kind of filling roles and the role is gonna be feel differently each time you write a song, right, But somebody's driving and somebody's got the map out right. That that's and I haven't been able to articulate like that, but that's exactly like we've got a destination. The destination is the song. The journey is the process. Yeah, so you you that can't be two drivers and it can't be two navigators. Man, you should really write songs because

it's it's fantastic, fantastic. How about this on here back with Mamma's the porch, come on in, suffers on the stove and beers and every when the song came out and for me I grew up listening to him on

the radio. Guy grew up and it was Garth and Tim and you know even you play calling right like that to me was when I was listening to Kiss the ninety six and on the rock are u s ninety seven and Hot Springs, those are the artists on and I remember, you know, Tim growing up listening to it just to start with obviously any out Long and Don't Take the Girl, like his first couple of singles, and then following him all the way up. And when this song came out, I was actually on the radio

getting to play it. I was like, man, this is so traditionally progressive. It was almost like a rewind song that still sounded like today. When you write a song like that, do you feel like you're doing that, like you're trying to take a step back. I don't know, I don't. I don't think it's as I don't think it's as conscious as that. You know, we're all the everything we do is the you know, summation of everything

that that you know that's come before us. So we're all we're borrowing from ourselves, We're borrowing from I mean that is very similar to you know, just to see you smile, just to see you smile. But the trend, though, was not that when that song came out. I know, I mean that's the magic of Tim McGraw who continues to reinvent himself and kind of defy tradition. When it gets real, you know, real progressive, he'll do that. And then when it gets real country, he'll do you know,

you know, live like you're dying. I mean, he is a you know, he's a he's a metamorphosis. You have a lot of Tim cuts, and I mean I have five up here and you may have more than that. But so are you in the what they call Tim camp where he he I love Tim mcgrawl. And again, I mean he has recorded more of my songs anybody, so,

so temps recording more of you than anybody knows. So I mean, you know, I mean if Tim and I are friends, but you know, I mean, as artists, they have to be like, what's the best for this wreck at this particular moment. So at the same time that they have a voice. And if someone has a voice like your inner voice, and you're like, man, they actually speak, they speak like I speak. Do you feel like you didn't have that. Well, excuse me, yeah, I think so. I mean, I mean he has three children. I have

three children. Um. The way I really got connected to him was was through Grown Indo Cry. That was the first song he had. And then, uh, he invited me to come out to California when he was doing the movie Flicker because they needed an entitle for the movie. And so I went out there and I spent a couple of nights on the set with him and met

Billy Bob Thornton and it was an amazing experience. But just trying to soak up the sights and sounds of that movie and uh, so you know, yeah, there's certainly commonalities to his life. I think we probably, you know, in some ways the way we look at life and think are similar. This one here, Well, I love I love the South. I love my daughters and my wife. I went to Old miss So I spent a lot of time in Oxford, Oxford, Mississippi. Oxford has this amazing

bookstore called Square Books. And you walk in Square Books and it's got um a great poster that says, you know, uh, Southerners, we may not know how to uh talk, but we sure know how to write. And they have pictures of Udora Welty and you know, Robert pin Warren, William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, and I just I just started thinking about the distinctive way that Southerners think, talk and the way that we look at the world. It really is is very different than other parts of the country, and

just kind of what a Southern voice is. And so my friend Bob Depiro, who's from you know, it's not he's from Ohio, but he you know that that really was so fun to write because we just kind of name checked every famous Southerner that there was, from Michael Jordan's to you know, Bear Bryant to Billy Graham to Dale Earnhardt. It was just that was that was a fun one to write. Did you write today? I did

right today. How do you feel bout Today's right? Well, today it was with my least favorite co writer, which is myself. So I was I was working on a song by myself. Uh so it's it's you know, it's it is. The songs that right by myself are different. Um, but you know it's I don't know, it's it's kind of a beautiful, torturous relationship. You know, when you're right by yourself, I really do like it. It's uh, I love co writing, but I do I really like writing

by myself as well. How hard is it to remember all the writers did you write with? Because you throughout a number that you've been how many songs you don't know every code writer you've wtten with. People were like, hey, you wrote this song. Is it a hard do you have to let go back and cramp sometimes? Well? Yeah, I mean I was like, you know, in the last year, I was at a restaurant. I was eating dinner with

some friends and it was a coat. It was a songwriter and his wife and this girl comes up to the table and they're talking and because my friend Barry Dean, he says, this is Stephanie, and uh, I said, Stephanie, some nice to meet you. And she said, well, actually we've written together. And I was like, that's embarrassing, and I trickly tried to quickly try to recover. Oh yes, yeah, I remember that it was but anyway, yeah, it's uh.

But you know, we're all kind of about the songwriters are about all the next thing, like whatever has happened in the past, it's just it just doesn't matter. Songs in a sense, even the catalog, all these songs, I mean, they sound amazing. It's almost like it shocks me to hear the songs because i' songs in a sense become poison and that they will try to destroy you. So and what I mean by that is is what they do is they try to keep you in the past, and they try to prevent you from going on to

the next thing. And as a writer, we have to be all about the next, the next thing. You know, the best song, it's the best song I've written, it's the next one. So you come to Nashville and eight you move away. A few years later, you move back in two thousand nine or so, you win the triple. You have a triple play three number ones in the

same year. That's like movie type stuff. Well, you know it should give everybody that's you know that's still I mean, we're all aspiring, but someone that's you know that hadn't quite figured it out yet. I mean, I didn't get my first country song recorded tilst forty one. And you know, if you love it, you just you just stay with it, and it's it's a gift and you know, you just try to enjoy the god given gift of creativity and be about it, share your music with anybody and everybody

that will listen. And I'm just looking at some notes here even it's just wild that you've been relevant so long, from calling Ray to Brett Elder. It's something I'm good at and with I say relevant, Like on the progressive side, you've been progressive for so long, Like that's quite the span of time to be progressive, because progression always eventually it's caught. Well, I do think about that, you know, I think one of the keys to you know, I mean,

of course I'm I'm now. You know, it used to be I was like the father in the room, and now I'm the grandfather in the room. So that I think one of the ways to do that is is just to embrace that. But you know, it's continuing to I mean, I collaborate with a lot of very young people, you know, people that are like, you know, like you know, I asked, I'll, you know, come up like how old are your like, how how old are your parents? Forty five?

You know, I was like, so you just you have to keep working younger, writing younger, and you know, I mean, I'm I'm trying to write the perfect song. I mean, I'm like, I'm just I'm driven to, you know, try to get better. Like that Brett Elder song. It's nuts. If you talk about rhythm, rhythm, I mean, that's a perfect case of what I'm talking about. But I mean

that's again I was. I had tortured Brett for about three hours trying to write, like we'd written a song that we both love called one Mississippi that was on his first album. Loved that song, by the way, and we were trying to write that part two and just

couldn't do it. And so Brett said finally was like, hey, what if we just and he just started banging out some rhythm and I just got my notebook and I just started jotting stuff down a voice, me moving him doing it, and you know, probably within an hour we kind of had it and just thought, well, at least that was like a cathartic experience. It was a cleanse and uh, you know, I mean, but that's I was just I was Brett Eldridge's lightning in a bottle and

I was just trying to capture it. He's he's magic. This is Gwyneth patro song coming Home Again. That's a that's a veer. Yeah, right, she's playing a singer. Yes, she can sing. Yes, Yeah, it was that was yeah, I mean it was that was Was it written for this Yes? No. So you know, Sony kind of had an inside track when This Country Strong was being made, and so everybody in town, you know, started writing songs

for it. But you literally got a script and to be like, I love writing songs for movies, So you write a script. I mean in the script is like, you know, describe the scene and you know, song needed here, and so I got with you know, Hillary Lindsay and Troy Vergis and Bob the Bureau and we you know, we wrote that together. But yeah, we were writing that for the movie. And honestly, Hillary Lindsay is like, we ever have you ever heard her sing? Oh? Yeah, we

play a lot of it. I mean, so she's just so she was singing, and it was just we were just all transported to another realm. But yeah, that that was we That was Ken. Weird to see your song in the movie. It is. Yeah, of course it wasn't really in the movie that long, but you know, it's not Chicago, but even for a second. Yeah, yeah, but that was we got to go to the Golden Globes and the Oscar So that was that was that was crazy. What impresses your your family, your kids now, because you've

done a lot, like what oppresses you know? I mean, I think they've been around it so long. Now. I do have a twenty six year old daughter and she's writing songs with my encouragement, and so you know, we kind of we talk shop and um, I mean I'm encouraging her and she's encouraging me. I mean, my wife is honestly read. She's co written every song I've ever ridden, you know, I mean, I've made her listen to almost

every song, and she's great. She is not impressed with me, she's not impressed in music, but she she's got a great year. So occasionally, you know, I mean, she'll she'll often, you know, have a suggestion here there, and I'll begrudgingly have to have to follow it. I want to hear this demo one more time at the house to build me. It's so good. You had to be like this could be a thing when you cut this yet, like this

could be the song. Well, Honestly, we think that every song we write, but even you sing it like this here, even with my vocal, every song were right, and there's a point in the process where you think this is the best songs I've written, only to be you know,

disappointed about thirty minutes later. But I think you have to Jimmy what I have to scret song where it talks about suspending disbelief, you have to suspend the disbelief while you're writing to be able to write it, and you have to kind of think, God, this is you just get caught up in the magic and mystery of collaboration when you finish that. Because I have a problem with when I write, like a book or whatever I'm

doing creatively, I hate it for a while. Yeah, do you ever reach that point where you've been inside of it so much that you just don't even know? Like where was I? What was I don't even understand what I'm trying to do here? Yeah, I mean I feel like that constantly. But again, I think the thing that we have to tell ourselves is, look, that's somebody else's responsibility to make those value judgments. You're that's not your job. You're that's the job of the publisher, of of somebody else.

I think when we get too much in the headset of a critic or a somebody on the business end of it, it's somehow thwarts the creative process. So, you know, it's like the critic in our head is you know, that's the arch enemy that we have to We just have to constantly try to silence the critic who's trying to get you not the right or to be too critical, or you know, just to be inside your head instead

of you know, being on the paper, being present. It's a it takes great mental discipline to do this, don't you think I don't have it, like and again, all right, in a lot of different ways, you know, constent up comedy books, you know. But my discipline is just continuing to do it. But there's nothing that I do and

I come away from it going that was good. Ever, because I get inside of it and I'm like, this is not funny anymore, this is not good anymore, This is not compelling, and I just want to run away from it. Every time I want to run away. But well, I know, I mean I feel like that too. I am, so I get so dissatisfied. I just you know you could. It's it's just it's up and down. The last couple of weeks, all I can think about is all the time I've wasted and all the all the opportunities I missed.

I really am, I've just been. And then I started singing the scoreboard clocks shows up again. I'm like, wow, am I am? I take am? I am? I using the time that I have, you know, to its greatest asset and you know that those are That's okay to do that for a while, but you've gotta get rescued from that otherwise you just again that's start. When I do that, I'm like, all right, I'm worrying about the the end result, which is is Tim mcgrawl or Blake Shelter,

Is anybody going to care about this? And then when when when you get there, then you're you're kind of sunk. Get to quickly get off that and be like, oh wait a minute, that doesn't matter. What matters is the next song I gotta write. So how much do I owe you for this? Our class? I just took, like these kids coming up, this has been like therapy. I should pay you about four just to listen to it. Probably in the well. I've enjoyed it has been. This has been a fun hour for me. I appreciate you

coming by. Can people take your class? Get there? Leg well? I honestly, I got so busy I don't have time. I didn't I've had to temporarily halt teaching at Belmont. But I mean, I'm very involved with the n s a I, which is a great organization. And uh, I I love talking is I'm not really teaching. I'm I'm co learning with somebody. So it's like I love talking

about it, I love working through it. Um, we really, you know, creative people, we really we need community, We need each other, We need people to remind us of, you know, of of all that we've got and um, you know, all that we're doing and all that we're doing well, you know, because I think the default, the normal default position in my mind is just to think of all that I haven't done well and the you know, all the time that I've wasted. But U it's been

very encouraging for me today. But I'm telling you, I mean, you may not see it like that, but you're you're you're incredibly creative and you're it's not contrived and it's

fluid and it's fun, and it's it's transparent. It takes you know, and you you do risk a lot, but I mean that's that's part of that's part of what we love about what you do is that it's it's somehow you know, when you're when you're willing to risk transparency, it allows other people to kind of overlay their life onto onto what you're doing and kind of live vicariously through it. So that's all we're trying to do is just continue to you know, kind of create art that

other people can can. You know, when we see the Mona Lisa, we're like, there's something about her smile that allows us to overlay our life on that, or Harry Potter or you know, to kill a mock bird or you know, it's like that's what art. That's what I think. That's why God gave us art is it allows us to um, you know, find out something about ourselves, you know. But the key to it has got to be transparent and vulnerable. And that's at I'm not easy to do.

I've enjoyed the hour. I've really enjoyed the hour. Oh man, I feel like I just went back to school. Episode seventy one with Tom Douglas and I'm gonna go revalue. I'm gonna look a the scoreboard in my bedroom, reevaluate a LoVa and do it. And thanks Tomas, I'll buy enjoying it. I'll see you next time. Thank you everybody,