Behind the Songs

Crazy Blue Eyes

“Crazy Blue Eyes” is real special to me because I wrote it with my very good and oldest friend, Mary McFadden, who’s probably been my best friend since we were eight years old. We grew up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania together.

When we wrote it, Mary was recovering from a divorce and had come to visit me in Santa Cruz where I had a little cabin up in the redwoods. Anyway, one morning, while she was still sleeping, I started writing this song, and after I had gotten a verse or two, I yelled up at her and said “Get down here and help me finish this song because you of all people, having had about the same life experiences as I have had should be well equipped to write a tune like this.” Well, she had never written a song before, but once we sat down, I don’t think it took us more than 15 minutes to finish it. And what made it even more special was that it became my very first release and hit with Columbia/Sherrill, Inc.

“Crazy Blue Eyes” is the kind of song I call a ‘real’ song. It’s one that comes completely from experience and not really from imagination. And this one is pretty autobiographical, at least as far as I’m concerned. And I think as far as Mary’s concerned, too.

 

Losing Kind of Love

I wrote “Losing Kind of Love” with Mark Sherrill, who’s been my co-writer on a lot of tunes. The idea for this song was originally Mark’s. He had this title, and I forgot exactly what it was, but it had ‘Kind of Love’ in it; only it was too positive. When he showed it to me, I heard something in my head, and turned to him and said “Oh, I really hate to do this to you – turn a positive idea for a love song into something that maybe wouldn’t be so positive, but doesn’t losing kind of love sound like a great thing?” And so, we changed the one word in the titles and began to write. As it turned out, it’s a song about someone who perpetually loses in love affairs.

 

Tennessee Waltz

I had a lot of reasons for doing “Tennessee Waltz,” but the one that turned out to mean the most to me was told to me after I had already recorded it. When I was a child – I guess between the ages of two and five – my mother used to play this song over and over again by Patti Page. It was the only record she could afford, and she’d play it on this little inexpensive record player. Probably at some point, it became carved into my DNA. So, when it came up for me to do an old hit, I chose “Tennessee Waltz.”

Whisper

I wrote most of the lyrics and had the idea for “Whisper” during a fight with my boyfriend, who was also in my band at the time. We were on our way to San Jose, which is about a 45-minute drive, to make a flight to Los Angeles, and as he was kind of pontificating to me, I had this song come to me. He was talking into one ear, and this song came floating out the other. If you know the song at all, the lyrics go… “Whisper to your woman once in a while…”

The reason I was going to L.A. was to write with Mark, and when I got to his apartment, I never even said “Hello.” All I said was, “Mark, get a guitar!” This was also one that took only about 10 or 15 minutes to finish. You know, I’m beginning to find that the best songs usually take only a few minutes to finish!

 

Takin' It Easy

‘Takin’ It Easy” was Mark’s idea. We were sitting around in Billy Sherrill’s office (my producer at the time) one day, talking about songs, and Mark said, “I want to go where the warm winds blow…” Well, that was all we needed. He had about a verse of it already finished, and then Billy and I helped complete it.

 

16th Avenue

Billy found “16th Avenue” for me and said, “I don’t know what you’re gonna think about this song, but I’m saving it for somebody.” Well, after hearing it, I said to him, “Billy, if you give this song to anybody else but me, I’ll die. So will you!”

It was sometime later before I had the chance to meet Tom Schuyler, who wrote it, and he’s just as fantastic a person as this song is. He’s a very inspiring human being. In fact, I did another one of his songs on my Dream Baby album called “Old Yellow Car.”

But the Reason I like “16th Avenue” is because it’s a story about our lives.

 

Slow Down

“Slow Down” came from an idea that I had carried around for about a year. I had a couple of lines and the beginning of a melody, but I couldn’t seem to work it out beyond that. One day, when I went into Billy’s office, I sang him the lies and hummed the melody and he just flipped out. “Go home with Mark and write it,” he said. So, Mark and I went home and wrote it, but we knew it just wasn’t right. So, we took it back to Billy, and we all ended up sitting down and re-writing the song together and came up with what you hear on the record.

I think “Slow Down” is a real sophisticated tune, and I’d almost like to hear somebody in the Frank Sinatra vein cover it. It has such a nice, relaxing feel to it. It’s the kind of song that makes you visualize two people in a setting where the curtains are softly blowing, there are a couple of glasses of good wine sitting on the table, and the music and lights are turned down low.

 

Everybody Makes Mistakes

“Everybody Makes Mistakes” is another song that I wrote from experience. The idea of it was something that I had wanted to write for a long time, and it’s really a song about letting yourself ‘be.’ Essentially it says, it’s OK. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s the human condition. People may break your heart, but they don’t always mean to. But that’s the way it is, and it’s OK.

 

Dream Baby

“Dream Baby” is a song that I just love. I have a friend named Patrick, who is a very wonderful musician and carpenter, and I used to love going down to his house, sitting there with a cup of coffee, and listening to him play. And he used to play this song. That’s where I first heard it.

When Bobby Bare and I were putting together some things that we wanted to record, we got to talking about how much we both loved this song, and how it would be nice if somebody would do it over again. Well, we didn’t get around to doing it, but kind of at the last minute when I was working on the “Dream Baby” album, I said to Billy, “Why don’t we try ‘Dream Baby’? Let’s see what we can get.”

“Dream Baby” is the kind of song the world needs right now. The world is so heavy, there’s so much going on, and people have so much on their minds that it’s really nice sometimes to hear a nice, light, little song. People don’t need heavy, ponderous lyrics right now.