Anatomy of a Song by Jeffrey Steele Meanwhile Back at Mama’S
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Anatomy of a Song By Jeffrey Steele Meanwhile Back At Mama’s Meanwhile Back At Mama’s is such a sweet story, kind of as sweet as the song ended up being. A buddy of mine, Jaren Johnston, that was one of the co-writers of the song, had hooked me up that day with him and Tom Douglas. Tom and I and Jaren got together. The first song that we wrote was a song called Raise ‘Em Up for Keith Urban and Eric Church. It was the first thing we wrote and I remember walking away, shaking my head, going “wow I can’t believe I’ve never written with Tom Douglas before. That was such an amazing experience.” I felt like we really connected and of course Jaren and I have been writing for a while. There is a magic there that you always try to find writing songs. So when we got back together the second time, and this was only the second time, we were talking about the previous song we had written. We were kind of noodling around and playing it on the guitar for each other. Then Jaren went off into a similar kind of riff and Tom had the title “Meanwhile Back at Home.” We kind of sat around noodling around then all of a sudden it morphed into Meanwhile Back at Mama’s. Then this whole story fell out about just where the world is today, how crazy things have gotten, and how cool it would be to just kind of check out for a while to go back to a better time. Maybe just even if it’s only in your head; a better place. It seems like it doesn’t exist as much anymore. It was the second song we wrote together so the experience was fantastic. It just goes to show you how this town works. People get together and share an idea. It was a really beautiful day that day. Speed I remember writing a song called Speed with Chris Wallin a long time ago. It’s been years now, probably 10 years ago. I just remember the moment. I’d written a song with Chris and Anthony Smith the first time we wrote together, which was recorded by Trace Adkins. It was my first time meeting Chris and I was just kind of floored by the chemistry we had together and how we played off each other’s thoughts. I came into “the write” that day with Chris; it was just me and Chris together. I think it might have been the first time we were actually together, just the two of us. There was always a third person in the room until then, but it was the first time the two of us got together. I just remember it was one of those moments. It was like one of those lightning bolt songwriting moments where- kind of a snapshot of like what this gig is, when it’s really working and everything is firing on the right cylinders. I came in. I had a couple lines. I always had a couple lines I’d come in with. I was experimenting with a minor chord progression on my guitar and I had this opening where I said “I’m tired of spinning my wheels” and that’s really all it was. It wasn’t much but it felt really good. “(singing) I’m tired of spinning my wheels.” Chris just looked at me and said, “I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal.” Then I looked at him and said “and I need to get there really quick.” At that point, two lines into the song, I already knew what the song was going to be. I already had a sense that this was going to be a song about going fast, going fast to get over a broken heart, and going fast to forget the past. As the lines started falling out the title Speed just came out of nowhere. We didn’t have the title. It just came out nowhere. But it was so obvious that that was where the song was going to go to. When you have moments like that, the lyrics just come so easy because you know exactly what you’re writing to. So there is a little bit of craft involved, but it’s like craft without using your conscious brain to know that you’re in the craft, but you’re right up in it. You’re right up in all the rules and regulations of how songs work, but at the same time you’re being totally creative on top of it, and you’re seeing the open road you have of unlimited ideas you could throw into this lyric that drive you straight to the hook and keep your ear on the song, wanting to know what the next line is. That’s a real crucial thing I think- to keep the listener’s ear without them knowing it on the song where they want to hear the next thing. They want to hear the next twist in the song. That was one of those days, so it’s always been a favorite song maybe just for that reason. I love playing it live but it might just be a favorite song for that reason; because it was that one in a million times when the craft and creativity are just weaving like a basket, you know, and you feel like “I’m so inside this song.” I’m so “the guy” in this song. I so get this moment that we were writing about. So I think maybe that might stick out more than just being a fun song to sing on stage, but that’s definitely one of my favorites. Swamp Thing I wrote this song years ago called Swamp Thing with Bart Allmand and Chris Wallin. We were just sitting in the office one day and it was late in the day. I think we’d already written something and we were just kind of goofing around with our guitars and I detuned my E string. By doing that I could play chords with one finger. But I started playing this D to an F sort of pull off lick, which was very Zeppelin-esque and just thundering. Even on the acoustic guitar it sounded thundering. In my mind, I could imagine an electric guitar plugged in, this thing would just sound like buildings coming down when the song played. Then we got this really cool kind of banjo. I think Bart was playing banjo. We got this really cool kind of hillbilly groove going for the verses. It turned out to be one of my favorite songs that I ever wrote and one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever played live. It was nothing. It was, the lyric, we wrote this song called swamp thing about life on the swamp; our take on that. It turned into one of my, I think, favorite songs that people come out to hear when I’m playing live- is to hear us rock out on those songs. It’s just a really great example of just going with the flow, not overthinking the lyric. Which anytime I think you’re writing a rock song you just kind of have to go with the moment of what the music is telling you to do more than like a country song where you’re really thinking through the lyric really hard. But that’s one of my favorite songs for that reason and definitely one of my favorite songs to play live, for sure. Raise ‘Em Up Raise ‘Em Up…A great day. I love those days. Jaren Johnston was one of the co-writers on Raise ‘Em Up as well as Tom Douglas. Jaren is one of those guys too, that when he comes into the room, he just goes. He doesn’t care where he goes. He’s aware of what he’s doing and what’s going on in music right now in terms of what’s hot and what not and all that. But when he gets in the room he just kind of goes where he wants to go. He’s not worried about “are we saying the right thing?” You know? It’s just jumping in. So he called me one day, kind of out of the blue, said he was going to be getting together with Tom Douglas the following day, and wanted to know if I wanted to jump in with him on a song. It might even have been the same day. I can’t remember. It could’ve been the same day. I’d never written with Tom before. I’d known Tom for a real long time here in Nashville. We just never wrote a song; which was cool. I thought that was really cool that Jaren kind of brought us together. This younger guy brought these two old guys together for the first time. The cool thing about it was, like I was saying before, we got in a room and there was no pretension. It was just three guys in a room; a tiny little room. There was an idea going. I think Jaren had a guitar idea going and a little bit of the title. The cool thing was we threw out the first couple lines and, you know, Raise ‘Em Up- lighter on a Saturday night, band plays a song you like and you’re singing along.