The Bobby Bones Show - BONUS: BobbyCast #71 - Tom Douglas - Wrote "The House That Built Me" and more

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

This is a bonus episode of the BobbyCast. A show that Bobby does from his house! Songwriter Tom Douglas stops by the BobbyCast. He tells the story behind writing "The House That Built Me", multiple songs for Tim McGraw and his theories on how to approach writing a song.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And actually I had on one of the songwriters on the Bobbycast. I wanted to play it back here for you guys, because I thought it was so good. And this is newsworthy because the song just won this award. And his name's Tom Douglas, and you'll hear how the song took seven years. You'll hear how it got to Miranda, which is pretty crazy because it was actually sent to Blake Shelton. So, and you'll hear some other stuff Tom Douglas did. And if you like this show we're about to play for you, it's called The Bobbycast. Subscribe, wherever you listen to your podcast, IHeartRadio or wherever it is, just hit subscribe.

And if you don't mind, put up a little comment. Give us, what's the maximum amount of stars? Five? On podcast? You can say it. Oh, five. Yeah. Give five stars if you don't mind.

Yeah. Write us a good review. Okay, here is Tom Douglas, an episode of the Bobbycast. Check it out. All right, episode 71 of the Bobbycast with writer Tom Douglas. How are you? It's good to see you, man. Good to see you, sir.

So many people say so many great things about you. It was finally nice to get you in here. How long have you been in Nashville? Well, I came the first time from 1980 to 84, and then I left in 84, never to return, and moved back in 1997. So now I've been here. That much of a gap, huh?

Yeah, just give or take 13 years. But, yeah, now I've been back. back 20 years. So it's a, yeah, 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 getting here. I'm going to 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 changer for anybody. And we'll come back around to that one a second. So the house that built me, Southern voice.

Tim, I run to you from Lady A. I mean, I have a lot of them. I'm just giving people a taste here so they know the greatness that they're hearing. Raise them up. Get those white sails sailing down in Mexico. You ain't making a toast. Lift your tear. Some good stuff.

And I'm going to hit them with some other stuff in a minute. Anyway. So you come here in 1980. Yeah. To do what? Well, you know, I grew up in Atlanta. I grew up in a household where education and job security were really, they were the two preeminent, you know, parts of my life and my childhood.

That's kind of what was preached to me by my parents. My father was very musical and loved music and really, he loved songs. I mean, kind of looking back, I have some presuppers. perspective. So music was a big part of our household, but, you know, 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 going to, 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, I was 27, 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, who 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 almost like the, you know, the, it's almost like the, the siren, you know, in the, in mythology, where she's calling you, beckoning you. Why do you think that is? Why did you want to come to Nashville so bad? 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 12. So I've always, you know,

had a poetic been. I've always loved stories. I've always loved songs. I never aspired to be an artist. But I just, you know, I just, I 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 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 27 i didn't really i just i just had to do it i 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 i just wanted to soak up the sights and the sounds

and the people and what's national like in 1980 and who was here like who were the big names what was Nashville like in 1980 when you moved well it was uh 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, 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 1964, the

first concert I went to was Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium. I saw the Beatles. Where the Braves used to play. Where the Braves used to play. So 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 listen to country music. So I came up here and I still, you know, I was like a fish out of water. I didn't really know what was going on in Music Row. And looking back, I don't know, I'd have to think about what was going on. on. I wonder what kind of piques my curiosity.

You saw the Beatles in 1964 in a stadium. Yeah. How does that sound? Yeah. Because the technology of, one, playing in a baseball stadium is not that good anyway, even today. Yeah. It's not the greatest environment for music, and they do. But then, could you hear them over the screens?

I mean, I still, it's indelibly etched in my mind, maybe a quarter mile. Like I got on a bus, a yellow school bus, with 20 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 like, I mean, so this is like, you know, this is Elvis, you know, creates a revolution in 1954. So this is like only 10 years later. And, I mean, literally girls screaming or was a quarter mile before you got to the stadium. You could hear the screams.

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 girl screamed. And literally they had like four Vox amps and they were singing over the PA of the Brave Stadium. That has to sound terrible. Now, again, to today's standards. Right. But do you remember hearing and knowing the songs was the screen? It was, it was a transcendent.

experience. It was it was just it was just something that I'll never forget. It was I mean it was truly it was it was mysterious and magical and I mean it was I don't know it's it stounded 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. were about how old? I was, I think, I mean, so I was born in 1953, so I was 11. Well, as an 11-year-old, your folks are cool with you going to watch the Beatles or

where they're controversial. 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, but, you know, it was a different time. It was pretty innocent. And, 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 11 year old children go to bridgestone and see justin beaver justin beaver i mean i'd have to go with them 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 in 1980 from 84 and i really i just kind of wander around i just meet people i pit songs i'm learning how to write songs and you know I 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 1980 sorry sorry yeah yeah yeah right in the early 80s you flew on an airplane across the ocean yeah did that not scare the crap out of you yeah but you could still smoke cigarettes how about

that I 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. It's just the way it was. I get scared flying over water right now with technology. I cannot, I can't imagine. So you go and you're doing anything to eat, it sounds like.

You're just trying to eat meals and learn. Yeah, so I'm just getting by, I'm giving blood at a blood bank. You know, you're just doing whatever you're doing. But, you know, it was thrilling and exciting. And but at the end of the time, So, you know, so now it's 1984 and I'm 31. So I've got all this education. All my friends are, you know, 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 10 years of my life. It was, it was very depressing. Do you have any songs at this point that had done anything at all? No. Okay. No. And, I mean, it was really, it was.

You know, I mean, Nashville is hard today, but, you know, when you don't have anything going on, from the outside looking in, Nashville is a very lonely place. So, you know, at that time, I just said, I got to 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. I was out.

In your mind, you were out. You were out. Never coming back. I was just, that was a. 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 31. 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 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 got to 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 got to

start all over again. And that was 1984. And so you started selling houses? Well, I got in commercial real estate. So, and as poorly as I'd done in music, I really, the, the, the, the real estate, commercial real estate world was terrible because you're too young to remember this, but interest rates went up to like 21%. Interest rates today are 4.5%. And there was a savings in 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 doing fine. It wasn't like I was, you know, in some cataconic, catatonic depression, but I was just starting over. Were you itching? No, 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, you know, a couple of years. And then, I mean, and the truth is, So this is now probably 1990. And I was cold calling a shopping center and I was saying I'm Tom Douglas with Cornerstone Real Estate. I lease the shopping center down the road. If you've 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 38 or 39 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 39 and cold calling a shopping center in August in Texas.

And really, and I had an epiphany. And it was like, God said, well, you've worshipped the creation, which is the song, instead of me, how's that working out? And it was, I mean, it was startling. I was like, wow, 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 let's talk about 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 at all, you know he's 14 years old. I mean, he's been with me through forever. So I do like to make sure he's taken care of. And for me, Wag is awesome. Wag's an on-demand. app for getting a dog walker. It's basically like Uber for dog walkers. They're thoroughly vetted walkers. Like I wouldn't trust someone with my dog if I didn't trust them. You know what I mean? Quality people experience dogs. I can tell you my experience has been fantastic with it. Like I mean, that's what I can tell you. Live GPS tracks your dog's walk. Notification when your dog uses the bathroom. Your phone will bark at you if you wanted to. You get a report

card after it. So wag. That's what you want to do. Search wag. The best part you don't have to be home wag since you have free lockbox or you leave alternate home instructions the app and so it's right there for you so it's an on-demand app and again if you love your dog you can be home and they come or you can not be home wag is a must-have if you're a dog owner you can get your first wag for free too just take the word take the word bones to 25324 text the word bones to 25 324 and you get your first wag but just search wag wag walker and bam there you go you got it okay so you come back And what year did you come back to Nashville? I moved here back in 1997.

Wow. So. So, but, so, I don't know if you want to go chronologically. 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 on Saturday morning in probably 1992. and you know I I started writing the song Little Rock which really was just autobiographical

which is Colin Ray Colin Ray I play a little bit of this I love this is I think I'm from Arkansas so we played this Oh yeah yeah yeah Yeah solid as a stone Baby wait and see

I got just one small problem here Without you Maybe I'm not me So you write this when you're still living in Texas Yeah. And then I go to I join songwriter associations everywhere I went. I went to Austin in the summer of 93,

reconnected with Paul Worley, whom I had known as a guitar player when I lived in Nashville nine years earlier and gave him a cassette at a cocktail party expecting him never to listen to it and about two weeks ago by and he calls him one day says, I've been listening a couple of these songs.

I like them. I want you to 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 Little Rock. The first song you got recorded at 41 years old. Right. Is this monster right here. Everybody knows this song.

I saw Adam Craig when he was on your show. Yeah. I think you just asked him. I was like, I was like, can you play Colin? Yeah. Adam Craig has that Colin Ray texture his voice. I mean, this song, I hear it reminds me my childhood.

Like, that's how strong this song is. And in fact that you wrote it, handed it off, never thought you got a call. When did it go, hey, and how far along was Colin in his career? Colin, he'd had, he'd had love me, and he had, and he'd had,

is it, in this life? He'd had it, he'd had a couple of hits. I mean, 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, you know, miraculously Colin Ray recorded it. 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 moved my family back in 1997.

for four years you commuted back in forth to Nashville yeah I still stay in the real estate business I was sure it's it wasn't going to work I just thought this was a one-off and I'm still not sure it's going to work but what a one-off like that's a monster okay so you move back thinking I can make a good run at this again what makes you think okay I have to move back now well you know I was 45 and I've been up here a I'd made a few relationships. Sony is the only publisher I've ever had. And so they made it possible.

I mean, so now I'm 45. I have three children and, 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'd be better for you and for us if you were here. And so they made it possible. And I was, my father had just passed away. And it was almost like I had had to be. I had a clean break just to start it all over again.

So you moved to Nashville. What's your first taste of success as a Nashville songwriter? Well, and then Colin Ray recorded a song called Love Remains and, 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, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, 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 call-in-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 had to, the hardest thing over all the years, you know, I mean, now I've written like 1,700 songs in 24 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 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 is kind of that. Tell me about this one here. Pretty familiar voice right there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was again, you know, I mean, I wouldn't have a career without Paul Worley. So that was again, Paul. And I mean, I, so I do love Springsteen. I love you too. I love Dylan.

And the, you know, the device that they use in a lot of songs are, you know, the verses are vignettes. Three completely unrelated vignettes. And it's tied together by like a two-line chorus. I mean, like, grown men don't cry is, I don't know why they say grown men don't cry. I don't know why they say grown men don't cry. Loves the only house, big enough for all the pain in the world, loves the only house. I mean, it's like, I love songs like that.

That's kind of in my DNA, because I've listened to so many songs like that. But I start all these songs on piano, and then I have to find somebody somehow to, you know, to translate it to make it, you know, make it sound like a record. So that happens in the studio. sometimes, but I mean, even the house of built me

is the demo was a piano vocal. Which I have here, the demo. I thought if I could touch this place or feel it. This brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here it's like I'm someone else. I doubt that maybe I could find myself.

I'm singing. That's me. That's like, yeah. What are you talking about? You're not a vocalist. That's like some... Bruce Springsteen meets Tom Waste. Kind of...

Listen to that. Build me. I buy that version. 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 Shamblin. I have to, I mean, if it's, 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 doesn't often happen. So when you make this demo and you, do you shop it or does someone go, this is perfect for Mar-Ramara? Well, we, you know, we were, and I worked on that for seven years. You know, we started it,

and then we demoed it, turned it into the publisher, and they were like, yeah, that's cool, which is like codes big for, this will never see the lie today. And it's maddening. You know,

you think everybody's a raging idiot, only to look in the mirror and realize that you're the raging idiot. So, yeah, but we worked on it. We redidded. demoed 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, 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. We didn't have that which is the line that precedes the hook and as you know the the line that precedes the hook is often more important or as important as the hook itself why would you say with a 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 Love's the Only House

took, it took years, you know, multiple demos and, you know, you just, you just have to, you know, you just have a feeling about certain songs and you just got to 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, as 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, I'm done.

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, right, so we wrote it, demoed it, turned it in, nothing. Wrote it, demoed, 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 the bell rings of those four other 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 a, It was like an atomic bomb. I mean, it was one of those palpable reactions where everybody loved it. And it 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 Hendricks sends the, you know, a tape or a CD with 10 songs on it to Blake Shelton every week to listen to songs. He comes back from tour. One wind-swept, Oklahoma night.

He puts a CD in his truck, and he's going down this highway. And third song in, it's the house of built 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 a mysterious event. I have no idea how to get a song to Miranda Lambert. I really don't. So you get word she's cutting the song. Yeah. And at that point, is it she's cutting it and we think it could be a single for the radio, or is it just she's cutting the song?

She's cutting a song, but, I mean, you know, most songwriters that I know, we really are fans. I mean, we are 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 as 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, Frank LaDelle called me, you know,

after she recorded it and he came, you know, to his office and played it for. I mean, 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 said, you're not going to put any drums on it?

I mean, it was like, it was just, it was so like, just bare that I was honestly, I was, I probably was discouraged. I was like, oh man, this is, this is, this is, I don't know what this is, but this is, just doesn't sound like anything that I'd really heard before. and country music but thank goodness they were true to their ideals and their art and for both

of you Miranda and for you this is a career changer yeah it's yeah yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's yeah it's I mean, everything about it was just phenomenal. I'm going to play it. And to hear you talk about it and to hear it, like right here. When you hear it right now, removed a bit. Yeah.

Remove from the process, removed from the awards. What do you think right now when you hear it? I mean, it's goosebumps. It's just it's something that, You know, it's just, I think it's, that's what music is. It, it, you know, her, she really has made the song her own, which is the ultimate compliment to a songwriter. 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 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 feel something again. And so much of life is all about numbing us, you know, in the chaos of life, the headlines. It's a numbing, you know, it's a numbing process. And that's, I think art, that's what art does. It reminds us to feel something again. When you have a song like that, and it's that big of a hit, it and you've already had hits we'll play some of the 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 we Alan and I both we thought right we're going to try to leverage this to write with John Legend or Beyonce or Adele or you know kind of we had visions of grandeur and honestly none of that materialized I mean like nothing it was like I don't I don't know why now, oddly enough, over time, you know, Alan and I thought, you know, within the first year, we're going to get all these very fascinating co-writes. And it just 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 Alan and I got a little lost in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the,

title wave of the song. Tell me about this one here, because I got a lot of them that I want you to talk about. This world keeps me I run to you from Lady A. Yeah. So you write this. With them, yeah. All three of them? All three of them.

So, you know, as the publisher set 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 so the lady anabellum's coming to your house in two weeks and i mean and i love what they had done i'd heard their demos and i think i'd seen him around playing and so you know 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 each successive day i'm like the more time i have to prepare for something the more paralyzed i become so I couldn't rhyme blue with you.

So I'm running in the Nashville Marathon, oddly enough, the weekend before. I follow 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 B, I'm delirious following this guy. I develop an intense hatred for the guy. Monday morning they show up, and they're going to come at 10.

I'm sick to my stomach. I'm thinking, how is this possible? I've got, and I just have no ideas. And so literally they came, you know, eager, expectant for me to have, you know, at least a decent idea. And I literally put my hands down on the piano and I was saying, you know, I run from hate 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 wrote it. I wrote these words. And I open up 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 weeks. So fortunately, they hung in there. And that was, but 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 crazy about words and, you know, I mean, words are important. They're important to me, but I really think people come to songs. I think people, I 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 there are a lot of songs that I love, have no idea what the words are. Yeah. But I think more importantly than melody or chords or production, it's rhythm. Rhythm really is what, rhythm is what draws us in.

And I haven't really paid attention to that through the last 24 years. But the longer I'm doing this, the more and more I'm at least paying attention to rhythm. There's this song now. You've heard Despacito? No. Despacito. It's like the new most stream song ever, a YouTube song ever. It's all Spanish.

I don't know why I love it. It's got a rhythm though. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I have heard about it because it's the most stream song. Yeah. And again, you say that. I don't know a single word of it. That's fascinating.

But I listen to the whole thing. And I'm like, yeah. You get it. I'm like, this is my jam. I feel it. Like, I don't know what they're saying, but I know what they're trying to say. Right.

Well, you know how it makes you. feel, which is, you know, that's what they often say. 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, I, yes, yeah. How do you teach songwriting? Like, if I were to take your class, I'm like, Tom, teach that to that. Right. Well, I really, specifically, it's lyric writing. So, you know, we do get into the whole thing of songwriting, but I, I still am affiliated with Belmont. I love Belmont, but I taught lyric writing with my co-taught with a friend of mine for five years. And, you know, really, I mean, lyric writing is, you know, it's just trying to get people to not edit what they do and just you have to kind of start freeform.

I mean, like literally if we were going through an exercise, it 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 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 250, words and then you say okay so you know if like what's the main point from that 250 word essay uh you know it's uh you know it's you know it's fear of flying 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 i 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, please.

Well, what's the number one song? and take Thomas Rett and Mary Morris's song. Craving you. Okay, so that's about, I think that's, that's, the whole thing makes you forget something. It's your,

I mean, if I were to put myself, you know, in the mind of the writers, they're just, there'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 have 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 It's just about coming back home and remembering who you are. Let me play this one here. Keith and church, raise them up. When you rode this, was it written for two people? No, no. And, I mean, honestly, Jeffrey Steele and I walked in on Jaron Johnston,

who's an amazing songwriter in the band Cadillac 3. And Jaron kind of had this thing started, and he had the title. So Jeffrey and I just were like kids in a candy store. All we started to do is we just started every. I mean, literally we just sat there and thought, let's connect everything that could possibly connect it with the words, raise them up. And let's just fill the verses full with that.

So raise up a glass, raise up a sail, 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's, that is just kind of a free form association of, of one, of three words, raise them up. Did that one feel good and completely finished it? Yeah, that was, that was, that was, that was quick. It was one day, Jaron does these amazing little demos. And, 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, sorry.

through the years. I mean, Keith didn't say this, but I've heard people say that he got a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that he's Australian and there's that patriotic verse and he was like, I don't know if I can pull this off.

Can an Australian guy sing about, you know, fist black and blue, fight for the truth? Can he sing? And I think the producer like Nathan Chapman said, well, what if we got somebody to come in and sing it with you? And I think he just said,

That's brilliant. Wow. 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 amazing. Nobody more American than Eric Church. That's right. That's about as American as you get.

Geez. Wow, what a story. I love this George Strait song. I said, well, I got a car. She said there's something. I got a car. And to get George to cut a song. Well, George Strait loves Keith Gattis.

Keith Gattis is a real He's a real cowboy So that's I wrote that with Keith And I mean I'm not saying 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 And he does you know I mean Keith Gattis He you know he's still as 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 Strait. You say that you sat there.

But if you're writing, you know, in your lifetime, you say he wrote a thousand, thousands of songs, does it kind of balance out? Where there are also songs that you wrote and somebody else has sat there? Well, yeah. And yes, yes. I mean, there are days where you're the editor and there are days where you're the artist in the room. So you just kind of have to, 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 bad. 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's going to be filled differently each time we write a song. Yeah, right. But somebody's driving and somebody's got the map out. Yeah, right.

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 a song. The journey is the process. Yeah, so there can't be two drivers and it can't be two navigators. Man, you should really write songs. It's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic.

How about this one here? I remember when the porch lights on come on in, if you want up, and suffers on the stove and beers in the bridge, Red sun's sinking that low. I remember when this song came out, and for me, I grew up,

I grew up, and it was Garth and Tim, and, you know, even you play Colin Ray, like that to me was when I was listening to Kiss a 96 and Little Rock, or US 97 in Hot Springs. Those were the artists on.

And I remember, you know, Tim, growing up, listening to just the start with, obviously, Indian Outlaw 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. Yeah. 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 think it's as conscious as that. You know, we're all the, everything we do is the, you know, you know, summation of everything that, you know, that's come before us.

So we're borrowing from ourselves and 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.

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 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 hears your songs i love tim McGraw and again i mean he has recorded more of my songs in you so so tim's recorded more of you than anybody yes so i mean i You know, I mean, Tim and I are friends, but, you know, I mean, as artists, they have to be like, what's the best for this record at this particular moment. At the same time, though, they have a voice. And if someone has a voice like your inner voice and you're like, man, they actually speak.

Yeah. They speak like I speak. Right. Do you feel like you and Tim have that? Well, excuse me. Yeah, I think so. I mean, he has three children. I have three children.

The way I really got connected to him was through Grom and Don't Cry. That was the first song he had. And then he invited me to come out to California when he was doing the movie Flicka because they needed an end title 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 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 Southern Boys this is a big one

yeah well I love I love the South I love my daughters and my wife I went to Ole Miss so I spent a lot of time at Oxford in Oxford Mississippi Oxford has this amazing bookstore called Square Books.

You walk in Square Books, and it's got a great poster that says, you know, Southerners, we may not know how to talk, but we sure know how to write. And they have pictures of Yodora Welty and, you know, Robert Penwar and William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. And 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,

he's not, he's from Ohio, but he, you know, that really was so fun to write, so we just kind of name-checked every famous southerner that there was from Michael Jordan to, you know, Bear Bryant to Billy Graham to Dale Earnhardt. It was just, that was a fun one to write. Did you write today? I did write today.

How do you feel like today's right? Well, today was with my least favorite co-writer, which is myself. So I was working on a song by myself. So it's, you know, it's, it is, so the songs I write by myself are different, but, you know, it's, I don't know, 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 that you write with? Because you throw out a number that you've written. How many songs you say you've written? 17, 1800. Okay.

You don't know every co-writer you've written with. And people were like, hey, you wrote this song. Is it a hard? Do you have to go back and cram 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 co-writer and his wife,

and this girl comes up to the table. table and they're talking and it's my friend very dean and he says this is Stephanie and uh I said Stephanie so nice to meet you and she said well actually we've written together and I was like that's embarrassing and I quickly tried to recover oh yes I 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's 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 almost like it shocks me to hear the songs because songs in a sense become poison and that they will try to destroy you. So, and what I mean by that 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. As a writer, we have to be all about the next thing. You know, the best song, what's the best song I've written? It's the next one. So you come to Nashville in 80, you move away a few years later. You move back 13, 14 years. I mean, in 2009 or so, you win the triple play.

You have a triple play. Three number ones in the same year. Yeah. That's like movie type stuff. Right. 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 until I was 41. And, you know, if you love it, you just stay with it. And 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'll listen.

I'm just looking at some notes here. Even, it's just wild that you've been relevant so long from Colin Ray to Brett Eldred, 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 gets caught. Right, yeah.

Well, I do think about that. You know, I think one of the keys to, you know, I mean, of course, I'm now, you know, it used to be, I was like, like the father in the room and now I'm the grandfather in the room. So I think one of the ways to do that 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 ask, I'll, you know, come up like, how old are your, like, how old are your parents?

45. 45, you know, I was like, so you just have to keep working younger, writing younger. You know, I mean, I'm trying to write the perfect song. I mean, I'm like, I'm just driven to, you know, try to get better. Like that Brett Eldred's song? It's nuts. Well, you talk about rhythm. There's a lot of rhythm in that song. 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 loved called One Mississippi that was on his first album. Love 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, he 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, voice memoing 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 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 magic this Gwen of the Patro song Coming home Again it's a that's a veer

Yeah right She's playing a singer Yes yeah she can sing 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, when Country Strong was being made. And so everybody in town, you know, started writing songs for it, but you literally got a script and it'd be like, I love writing songs for movies. So you write a script, I mean, in the script is like, you know, describes the scene and, you know, song needed here. And so I got with, you know, Hillary Lindsay and Troy Virgis and Bob DePiro and we, you know, we wrote that together. But yeah, yeah, we were writing that for the movie and honestly Hillary Lindsay is like have you ever heard her sing

oh yeah we play a lot of her 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 was we that was I think weird to see your song in a movie it is yeah of course it wasn't really in the movie

that long but you know they never are it's not Chicago but even for a second yeah yeah but that was we got to go to the Golden Globes and the Oscars. So that was, that was, that was crazy. What impresses your, your family, your kids now? Because you've done a lot. Like, what impresses them at this point? You know, I mean, I think they've been around it so long. Now, I do have a 26-year-old daughter and she's writing songs with my encouragement. And so, you know, we kind of, we talk shop and,

I mean, I'm encouraging her and she's encouraging me. I mean, my wife is honestly, she's co-written every song I've ever written. I mean, I've made her listen to almost every song. She's great. She is not impressed with me. She's not impressed with me. She's not impressed in music, but she's got a great ear. So occasionally, you know, I mean, she'll often, you know, have a suggestion here

there, and I'll begrudgingly have to follow it. I want to hear this demo one more time at the house that built me. It's so good. You had to be like, this could be a thing. When you cut this, you had to be like, this could probably. be the song. Well, honestly, we think that every song we write. But even you sing it, you're like this here, even with my vocal.

Every song we write. There's a point in the process where you think this is the best song of it written, only to be, you know, disappointed about 30 minutes later. I think you have to like Jimmy Webb, a great songwriter 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 something, 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? Yeah, yeah. You've been inside of it so much that you just don't even know. Yeah. Like, where was I?

What was I? 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. That's not your job. That's the job of a publisher, of somebody else.

I think when we get too much in the head set of a critic or somebody on the business end of it, it 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 to write 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 takes great mental discipline to do this, don't you think? I don't have it. Like, and, again, I write in a lot of different ways, you know, stand-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. Well, no, I mean, I feel like that too. I am so, I get so dissatisfied. I just, you know, you could, 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've missed. I really am, I've just been. And then I start seeing the scoreboard clock, shows up again, I'm like, wow.

Am I taking, am I using the time that I have, you know, to its greatest asset? And, you know, that those are, it's okay to do that for a while, but you've got to 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 end result, which is Tim McGraw or Blake Shelter. Is anybody going to care about this? And then when you get there, then you're kind of sunk. You have to quickly get off that and be like, oh, wait a minute.

That doesn't matter. What matters is the next song I've got to write. So how much I owe you for this hour class I just took? These kids come. This has been like therapy. I should pay you about $400 just to listen to me. I think we're probably even. Well, I've enjoyed it.

This has been a fun hour for me. I appreciate you coming by. Can people take your class? get their 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 NSAI

which is a great organization and I love talking I'm not really teaching I'm co-learning with somebody so it's like I love talking about it I love working through it we really you know creative people we need community we need each

We need people to remind us of, you know, of all that we've got and, 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, you know, all the time that I've wasted. But this has 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 incredible. 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 that's part of uh that's part of what we love about what you do is that 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, 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 mockingbird. 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, you know, find out something about ourselves, you know. But the key to it, it's got to be transparent and vulnerable. And that's often not easy to do. I've enjoyed the hour. Thank you. Me too. I've really enjoyed the hour.

Ooh, man. I felt like I just went back to school. Episode 71 with Tom Douglas. And I'm going to go reevaluate. I'm going to look at the scoreboard in my bedroom. re-evaluate a little bit. Don't do it. And thanks, Thomas.

I'll bye. I enjoyed it. I'll see you next time. Thank you, everybody. The Disneyland Resort is everything. We came to play the Calliway. Felt like I was in the round-up game with Woody and Pixar Piers. Have you been holding out on us?

No, just showing you where the real Hollywood stars are. Like Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Oh, there's jazz, right? And a drop. You'll see. Grab a Mickey Brussels on the way. Girl, you'll read in my mind. We're almost there.

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