“Ford Fairlane” (Bobby Pinson/Kris Bergsnes)
The oddest thing about this song is that there is no Ford Fairlane. My very first truck was a “Tooth” yellow ‘67 International pickup with a dead squirrel in the heater box and all the leaf springs missing on one side. I was writing with Kris Bergsnes, and describing that truck, and I came out with that line: “dust on the dashboard, rust on the back door, wouldn’t take a million dollars for.” And I was trying to get the “or” rhyme, so I said “that old four-door Ford Fairlane,” because it had that rhyme and all those “f”s in it. The next thing you know, that Ford Fairlane became that ‘67 International pickup, and then it became a kind of love story after that—a love for anything, a favorite car, a guitar, somebody’s favorite fishing pole. And that’s how we approached it: this song isn’t about a car any more than Rocky was about boxing.
“Shadows of the Heartland” (Bobby Pinson/Kris Bergsnes)
That’s probably the closest song to me in terms of actual experience. I grew up in the panhandle of Texas, where it’s so flat you could sit on your roof and watch your dog run away for four days. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, and now it’s like I can’t wait to write a song that would afford me the right to move back. My wife and I will probably live in Nashville forever, but home will always be there. My family lived in the last house on our street, with nothing but a farm-to-market road between us and a 17-mile-long wheat field. I think that song romanticizes that time of my life before driving. This song is Panhandle, Texas or anywhere you need it to be. “Shadows” is me from my first kiss to my last down of football. It was the calm before the storm, and I’ll always have a special place in my heart for that town and those years. A lot of time has passed since then, and I still know those streets. I still smell that early morning “two-a-days” grass. I still hear the band and I still feel the wind. SHADOWS OF THE HEARTLAND!
“Way Down” (Bobby Pinson/Jeremy Spillman)
I love this groove. It’s kind of a Tom Petty thing. I get my lyric from emotions, and sometimes I get my emotions from melody. Somebody will play something, or I’ll have a line, and I’ll hum it, and go through and lay out the melody, just as a road map. It might change three or four times, but I like doing that because it gives me something to do while I figure out what else I’m doing. I just kinda give myself a concert and wait for the words to fall. My favorite line in the song is “a friend of mine heard from a friend of hers she was workin’ on last name number three-there was a time I’d have relished those words, but I’m not where I used to be.” This song’s about getting over the bitterness of love gone bad and finding peace and freedom through forgiveness.
“I Thought That’s Who I Was” (Bobby Pinson/Tommy Conners)
You think you are who you are until you realize who you’re not, and that’s just how life is. I wrote this with Tommy Conners right before Christmas last year, and I didn’t think it was finished, so I forgot about it. He called me up the day before my last session for the album and said he wanted to demo it, so I went in to sing it and I couldn’t remember the song. When he reminded me of how it went, I could see that it didn’t need anything more. I knew by the time I was done that it was something special. I just loved the song, So I called [RCA Label Group Sr. VP A&R] Renee Bell in Florida, and overnighted her a copy of the board tape, and she called me back while I was in the studio and said, “you’ve got to cut that.” I threw it on and it turned out to be one of my favorites. Demoed on Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday, now that’s old school!
“Time Well Spent” (Bobby Pinson/Kris Bergsnes/Jim McCormick)
I wrote this about four years ago. It’s funny the things that meant the world to you when your world was small. This song is that first love you lost your senior year in high school, but didn’t quit loving until your senior year in college, or those friends who were so important before they went away and now you can’t remember their last names. “Time Well Spent” is that yearbook book picture of me in the letter jacket and championship mullet with a mouth full of metal and tight rolled jeans.