The song’s structure is unusual by today’s standards: verse-chorus-instrumental-chorus, and even the verse and the chorus are basically the same melody. And the spoken lines would be way out of place on contemporary country radio, too. But even as a song from a different time, this one is a classic. Without intentionally thinking about it, you’d probably just be singing along and enjoying it rather than noticing that it doesn’t fit today’s radio format.

Well, dang. I guess that justifies learning another Paisley song. I considered learning “Welcome to the Future,” which reached #2 on Billboard’s Country Songs chart^[1], a while back, but didn’t want to over-Paisley this blog. But it’s been a while now, and I think the song deserves its attention. Written by Brad and consistent hit-writer Chris DuBois^[2], the song takes a macroscopic look at the way technology, globalism and race-relations have evolved over the past 50 years. Particularly worth noting is the third verse, which paints racism’s ugly picture with the image of a cross burning in a (presumably black) kid’s front yard for asking out a (presumably white) girl. I think this is interesting because it’s on the country airwaves not only condemning overt racism, but also condemning a quieter symptom of lingering racism: disapproving of interracial couples.

For all of its merits, there are still a couple things that bug me about this song. Specifically, there are two lines. The first is maybe just a personal dislike of calling things “a revolution” due to overuse of the term, so Every day’s a revolution bugs me. But then if I think of the other, more mundane meaning (which I don’t think was really intended as its mundanity runs opposite of the song’s theme), I kind of like it, because it’s true: the earth makes one revolution on its axis every day. The second thing that bugs me is that Martin Luther King Jr. is referred to as Martin Luther. This makes me nuts because those are two distinct historical figures, but since the context clears up who’s who, I guess it’s okay. And I apologize if those pseudo-critiques brought you too far into my world of hearing things literally.

Musically, this song was crafted to showcase Paisley’s guitar-slinging between just about every line, and as a result, the verse structure is surprisingly sparse by contemporary country hit standards. It was pretty hard to get the phrasing right when learning this one. And the “Hey”s in the chorus and bridge overlap, so I had to do this one as a multi-track. Instead of filling the whole thing out with bass and fake drums, though, I kept it to acoustic guitar, a lead and some back-up vocals (on the “Hey”s) and then a synth, to bring in one of Frank Rogers’ notable production choices the Paisley version. I really like the electro-sounding synth in the original recording as a nod to the concept of “the future.”

I was driving to lunch one day last week, and after hearing it on the radio, was crushed that I couldn’t just hear it again. This is one of the few songs that I’ve heard recently that has actually got me to go buy the song from iTunes for a whopping $1.29. The concept and verses seem a little lacking on first listen; in a way they sound like a rehash of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” (and a million other songs) in that they’re describing a good American girl. But in the third verse the song takes a reflective twist, revealing that the singer is that girl, later in life, which is a redeeming payoff for the song. However, if the chorus hadn’t been so perfect, I would probably have changed the station before ever getting to the story’s payoff at all.

Again in the chorus, it’s not even the lyrics that I love, it’s the melody. Jason Blume makes a case that it’s not the lyrics that make a hit, it’s the melody. And he’s right. Of course the lyrics have to be great, too, but without the melody, no one would buy the record. Honestly, the title and hook lyric “American Honey” kind of irks me, to be perfectly honest, but it’s catchy. And it’s smashed into your head at the end of not only every chorus, but also every verse, so you’ll never forget it, and won’t have any trouble finding the song on iTunes.

According to iTunes, “American Honey” was written by Cary Barlowe, Hillary Lindsey and Shane Stevens. I think they might have listened to a lot of Huey Lewis when writing this one… listen for it in the chorus. Whatever they did, it worked.

I made another multi-track recording of this, mostly because I started with a midi piano track so I could transpose easily and find the right key for me to sing in, with a drum track to make it easier to stay in time. And then I added the harmonies, so I figured I should finish it out with bass and guitar. It’s not perfect, of course, but I got tired of working on it, so here you go, even if I am a bit flat in a couple places, and even if it’s weird for a male to be singing this song.

Categorization aside, the simplicity of it is just beautiful. Just about every time I hear this song on the radio, I tear up at least a little, and I don’t even have kids!

“All I Ask for Anymore” was written by a songwriting power duo consisting of Casey Beathard and Tim James^[1], who both have a stable of previous cuts and hits. The lyrics in the song do a great job of being so straight-forward you don’t really even have to think about them, with one notable exception of some ingenious foreshadowing in the first verse. In the singer’s list of smaller things he’s prayed for in the past, one of them is “one pink line when Katie said, ‘I’m late.’”

Of course Trace Adkins’ vocal performance is killer, and the producer’s use of a guitar in Drop-D tuning really brings out and echos the low baritone in his voice, too. And as always, I love all the pedal steel. Currently this one is #15 on the Billboard Country Songs chart, but I bet it’ll keep climbing for a bit.

I did my best live guitar-vocal of this song, up a step from where Trace sings it, but it’s still crazy low!

When I started off working on this one, I was going to sing it myself (like I normally do), so I transposed it down (or up) to E from C, because that’s where my voice was comfortable. But then my wife, Dixie, volunteered, so we tried it out. The vocal is at the very top of her range, but she pulled it off. The quality of her voice is way different than Rosanne’s take, of course, and due to the key it seems a little high for the song, but I’m proud of her for knocking it out.  It was fun to play the role of producer for someone else, too. I played on the midi piano a LOT on this one, from the synths to the rhythm piano to the drum sequencing, and I feel like I’m understanding it better than ever. Inverting chords and playing in different keys and such. Then I tracked bass, guitar and vocals and a little lead-ish guitar to fill in for where the steel solo was in the original.

Mixing is still a challenge for me. I don’t have monitors or even a pair of decent headphones, so this was done mostly through crappy headphones and some Dell computer speakers. Atrocious, I know, but it’s what I have for now. I did try to work with this Redline Monitor plug-in that I found to try to compensate for doing headphone mixes, and going back and forth between using that and not using it helped a bit, I think, but it’s still muddy and too bright in places, among other issues. Overall, I’m happy with how this study turned out, though.

The song is just full of hooks from the first guitar riff to the weird rock-star break in the chorus–”Baby don’t move / right here it is”–that makes you want to pump your fist in the air. And of course the first and last lines in the chorus are extremely strong.

The song was written by Gary LeVox, the lead singer in Rascall Flatts, with Wendell Mobley and Neil Thrasher^[1]. When the artist is a co-writer, I sometimes wonder how much credit they should get, especially when working with a writer as proven as Thrasher. Of course, it could have been almost completely written when LeVox brought it to Mobley and Thrasher… who’s to say? Also, somewhat unrelated, can we just take a minute to laugh at their names?

The structure of this song is simple on a macro level: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Chorus. But the chorus really has three parts to it, which actually doesn’t fit one of Jason Blume’s rules tools for songwriting: never have more than two melodic or rhythmic structures to one section of the song. There is a LOT going on in this chorus, but somehow it all fits together. The first chorus melody comes in, followed by a punctuation-like change (the “rock-star break I referred to earlier), then back to the first melody, and then to a weird kind of chorus-coda, which contains the title hook. Interesting. I can only imagine that this is the product of either A) a 5-minute magic song or B) about a million rewrites.

This was a fun one to learn to play. Of course the recording isn’t perfect, but I’ve got other things to do, songs to write, etc. You know how it is. And happy Thanksgiving!

There are a couple of things that I find interesting about this song. First off, it doesn’t feel like a country song. There’s this weird sub-genre of pop country that is swallowing up what I’ve always considered pop/rock. Some call is “cross-over,” usually meaning that a country artist has crossed-over into pop/rock. I’ll agree that when an artist does a song like this, it’s a “cross-over,” but I think it’s a cross-over in that the artist has recorded a pop/rock song that might still smell of that crystal-clean Nashville production. In this case, it’s a rock ballad, and it reminds me of both the Alan Parsons Project’s “Eye in the Sky” (in the melodies) and also something off of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors.

Secondly, the song’s topic rings true for anyone in this cell phone generation who has loved and lost and gotten wasted. This is the first song I’ve heard about a drunk-dial, which is something that seems to be creeping into the collective social consciousness more prevalently these days. About a year ago, Google Labs released an optional add-on for their popular Gmail service called Mail Goggles which, if enabled, requires the user to solve three simple math problems before sending an email if it’s late at night, and perhaps to prevent a drunk-email. Maybe it’s the acceleration of communication technology these days that has raised the awareness of this, or maybe people drink more, or maybe my generation has just reached (or passed) the stage in life when this is most likely to occur. In any case, it’s an emotionally charged social situation that people can relate to, and one that hasn’t been overdone in songs yet.

This song is performed as a duet, but it also works as a solo song. However, the duet adds a lot of energy and contrast in the verses, and any other artist would be hard-pressed to make a recording of this song that’s as good as this single.

For example, I made a multi-track recording (including canned drums!) this time in learning the song, and of course it’s not anywhere near as good as the original. But I feel like it paid off in understanding a little bit more about the song’s melodic structure. There are a variety of melodies and counter-melodies played by the instruments that interact with and draw contrast to the vocal melodies throughout the song. In particular, there’s a little signature piano hook that pops up throughout the song, and the bass line melodically ascends counter to the verse melody. I took the liberty of omitting and/or changing the lead guitar part as I’m not much of a slide guitar player, and I didn’t record (or learn, honestly) the harmonies. This song was a stretch for me vocally. I transposed it down a step from the recording, but I don’t think it was enough. This was a good home studio learning experience for me, though, and taking note of how all the instrumental parts in the song are so strategic was also educational.

Anyway, the point is that I’m sorry it’s been a while since my last post. In case of future irregularity in my postings, you might want to subscribe—that way you’ll never miss a one!

My wife suggested I learn the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Fishin’ in the Dark,” and as soon as I heard it and remembered it, I knew it had to be next. I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. It’s such a fun song, and the NGDB’s harmonies are so sweet. The verses and choruses are both independently solid, with the production of the verses being more sparse and a little more rhythmically dynamic and the choruses being big and full but with a very pronounced and straight duple meter. And then the final couple of choruses introduce a hint of a round, bringing the more complex rhythm into the mix at the finale. Also worth noting are the hard stops right before the choruses, which really add some nice punctuation. The song’s production really puts a nice polish on the standard ABABB format.

In addition to the infectious melody, the song writers Jim Photoglo (yes, Photoglo) and Wendy Waldman^[1] did a great job topically, as well. The lyrics clearly are about more than just goin’ fishin’, but they’re strung in such a way that you’d want to go fishin’, too, even if there wasn’t romance involved. They just really capture the moment when summer is right around the corner, and being outside at night feels awesome. And it makes you want your special someone close by.

This time around I made a multi-track recording since I really wanted to try to get some of the harmonies incorporated. And I had an extra banjo lying around the house, too. It’s a little loosey-goosey, and it’s not exactly hi-fi as I recorded it through the mic on my old iSight webcam, but I think it turned out pretty well, regardless.

From the religious “Amen” at the end of the chorus to the theme of a playboy straightened out after meeting the right woman, “Forever and Ever, Amen” is full of emotional hooks aimed right at the country and western audience. Can you imagine the girls hearing young Randy Travis telling them he’s going to love them even after their hair falls out? I imagine there was more than one who couldn’t handle it. Even Dolly Parton seemed pretty smitten when Randy came onto the scene.

One of the things about this song that I’ve found notable is just how smooth it is. It comes in, runs its verse-chorus, verse-chorus course, repeats the last line, and is over. There isn’t too much in the way of dynamics. Or there is a lot, from the electric guitar, dobro and steel to the background vocals, but they’re so subtle in relation to the bopping backbeat that it feels pretty one-level. Yet its story, its singalongability and Randy’s delivery just sold it all the way.

One interesting thing I noticed in this song is that one of the hooks involves a change to the II chord in the verse.  I feel like those slightly-less-than-expected changes really work to make a melody that’s interesting and holds the listeners’ attention. I tend to write from the vocal melody first, just filling the accompaniment chords in as support for the melody I’ve dreamed up. I wonder, though, if throwing a II or a VII chord into the mix in the middle of a verse might help out the melody and the song.

Anyway, here’s a pretty rough cut of “Forever and Ever, Amen.”

Considering his lifestyle, “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” seems like a perfect fit for Keith. The theme is undoubtedly dark, almost relentlessly so in the bridge, until there’s a little glimmer of hope in the third verse. But even that slight turn of hope is clearly in line with the reckless side that ultimately got him. The song has a happy-go-lucky bounce that provides a nice contrast to its darkness, but if you’re thinking about it, even that seems akin to a false drunken smile. Put it all together, though, and the song is solid. That’s one of the things that I love about pop music. While the theme of a song, specific passages of lyrics or the music might not be individually captivating in their own right, when put together in the right way, something truly special can be created. I think this song is one such example.

It’s sung in E, so I put a capo on the second fret and played it in D. There’s some really beautiful acoustic guitar featured at the beginning of the song that I kind of hinted at in my version, but I didn’t bother to learn it note-for-note. Most of the song is standard I, IV, V chords, but the inclusion of a switch to the VII adds some really nice tension and helps to keep this song interesting.

Keith’s voice is really warbly; he’s just all over the place but somehow always in key. I found it hard to recreate a lot of what he does in his version that is so great. It was interesting to note all his dips, scoops and jumps, though. It’s really a phenomenal vocal performance, and it was definitely appreciated, landing him and the songwriters Ron Hellard and Sonny Curtis a #1 hit.