“I’m Fine Either Way” (Bobby Pinson/Jeremy Spillman)
I’ve always said that: “I’m fine either way.” It’s like saying, “Whatever.” I wrote this song reflecting on several different situations in my life where I was faced with standing my ground regardless of consequence. I was never known as a troublemaker, but it was never my nature to just say, “OK, let’s just get along” no matter what. I’d say, “OK, I’d to get along, but we don’t have to.” I think having moved so many times from town to town, I learned over the years how to readjust, while at the same time never losing sight of who I was and what I stood for. I’ve taken a couple of award-winning “butt-whoopins,” but I’ve never been famous for backing down. Fortunately, I’ve calmed down over the years, but I’ve always looked at it like “I hope you’ll like me-maybe you won’t, I’M FINE EITHER WAY.”
“Nothin’ Happens In This Town” (Bobby Pinson/Jeremy Spillman)
This song is kind of like “Shadows of the Heartland” on alcohol—it’s the rebel kid, three years later. (Same setting, but with louder music and higher auto-insurance.) I was never the high school party animal that would drive twenty miles to a wet county and hope he found someone old enough to buy him beer, but I rode some roads with those who did. I never hung out of the passenger side window and took aim at the city limit sign, but I lived in a town with the population of two thousand, two hundred and twenty-two and two “twenty-two” bullet holes. There are a lot of great people who have come from small towns, there are a lot of great people that stayed there. I think they’ll all tell you that the charm of a small town is the stuff that goes on when there’s nothing going on.
“One More Believer” (Bobby Pinson/Jim McBride)
A crooked road doesn’t seem crooked when you’re on it. It’s not until you get to a high point in your life where you can turn and look back on those questionable miles you traveled and realize how far you strayed from the straight and narrow. I’d had a couple years there where if “It Happened” in a bar on Music Row, I either knew about it or caused it. It was usually B. I walked out of a club one night and there, in the middle of the street, I met a woman who made me not care if I ever stepped foot in one of those places again. It turned into a “real long hello,” then I married her. This song is me standing on a hill, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath and saying, “Thank you, God, for seeing me even when I wasn’t worth looking at.”
“Don’t Ask Me How I Know” (Bobby Pinson, Bart Butler, Brett Jones)
That nine year old’s Evel Knievel scar that’s still on my thirty-two-year-old ankle found its place among the many scars and sketches of “Don’t Ask Me How I Know.” I was three years old when my Momma drove thirteen miles back into town and gave me three pennies to pay for that piece of bubble gum that I had eternally borrowed from the check-out counter. I try to write songs that are true to life, based not only on personal experience, but mere observation. I’m just the conduit for the emotion. I’m fortunate not to have lived every situation in this song, but to disclose what’s true and what’s not, well, that would be “letting out the magic.”
“Man Like Me” (Bobby Pinson/Kris Bergsnes/Charlie Moore)
If I could only put one song on my album it would be “Man Like Me.” I came up with the very first line, and then I rattled it off, almost like a chant. I remember that it felt like the song was giving instructions, and I stopped and said, “one thing I want to make sure is that when we’re doing this, we’re not preaching.” The last verse of the song -“kick yourself for stumbling but never leave your feet, lie awake with your mistakes and find peace piece by piece” - is probably my favorite thing I’ve ever written.
“Started a Band” (Bobby Pinson/Matt Rossi)
During those years of trying to get a record deal and failing miserably, I was told several times that I should start a band and try to get a record deal that way. One small problem: I wasn’t a band. I was one guy who wrote songs and sang them. It was that simple. I finally got tired of the useless advice and I wrote “Started a Band” as a joke. No artist in their right mind would sing the last verse of this song, so I sang it! If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?