Die Dreaming, from Revenge of the Doberman

Here's another free stream. This one's from Volume 2. (Again, the 53 songs are semi-arbitrarily sequenced, and entirely arbitrarily divided into volumes.) The lyrics on this one are the kind that are enjoyable to sing 20 or 30 times, but tend to pall at 150. Beyonce shows up, and Chez Panisse, and tits are mentioned. You get the picture. I recorded it one afternoon at Vance Powell's place in the Berry Hill area of Nashville. Vance is a terrific engineer, and comes from the Springfield, Missouri scene of which Lou Whitney was a figurehead and where I have a couple roots of my own. I saw him at Lou's memorial in Springfield, and it occurred to me then that I should really do a song with him at the board, if he would consent, and he did.

Chris Scruggs plays most of the things: string bass, straight steel (he's the best living player on this instrument as far as I know), and L5 guitar. Buddy Spicher fiddled, Chris Brown drummed, and I just sang. I had Jesse Winchester on the brain, since he had recently died, and that's why I sang softer than usual. Working with Buddy was a dream come true, and I sure hope I get to do it again sometime! I told him how much I liked his playing on "Love In The Hot Afternoon" among other tunes; he told me a couple things that were so flattering that I can't repeat them. He didn't like the way his fiddle solo concluded ("so square!"), and I promised him I'd edit out the last two bars and put in something from an earlier pass, which I didn't do...so maybe I never will get to work with him again...

The only other thing I recall about this song is that I wrote it in a Holiday Inn in Evanston while trying to get away from a more serious composition that was hurting my brain. Whatever that was eventually hit the garbage can, while this featherier one survives, for now at least. Not an unusual outcome.