Every song written has a history regardless of what anyone tells you. Usually songwriters hold
thoughts or experiences in their minds for years and years and all of a sudden in some song they are
writing, they draw upon these unusual experiences and use those experiences to describe something
that is happening in the song they are writing. In the songs I have written, things are no different for
me, I draw on experiences and thoughts from my past in the songs I have written and recorded. I'll try
to explain each song I wrote and give you an incite as to where this song came form.
Kindly Keep It Country: This song is the very latest of around 150 plus songs that I have written. I had
already recorded all the songs that I was going to record for the CD Kindly Keep It Country. I was
listening to a demo of the CD with a friend of mine and he asked me why I hadn't written a special song
for the CD called Kindly Keep It Country. So after the fact and bass ackwards as always, I sat down and
wrote the song Kindly Keep It Country.
Cooly Mooly: This song came about one day in 1962 when I was supposed to be practicing for a show I
was going to give. I had just purchased the song by Bent Fabric called Alley Cat and was fascinated at
how it was put together. I liked the song a lot. I used the same chords as Alley Cat and did a different
arrangement and I came up with Cooly Mooly. In June of 1963 I recorded it and sold about 27,000
copies at that time.
Judy's Clown: Recorded in June of 1963 on Owl Records. Here is a story that just about every boy or
girl has experienced at one time or another in their life. It's written about a girl whose name was Judy.
And just like the song says she made a clown out of me. I called her one night for a date and she told
me she was going to be out of town with her parents. I decided to go to the local drive in and get a bite
to eat and as I was sitting there eating who should walk into the place but Judy with another fellow. I
then went home and wrote the song Judy's Clown.
My Daddy: Recorded in June of 1964 on the Owl Record Label. There are two men that have stood out
in my life. One was my father and the other was my father in law. Both of these men were super. I
wrote My Daddy back in the year of 1963 right after I recorded the songs Judy's Clown and Cooly Mooly.
The song was written as a tribute to my dad. A kinder person i have never known. When my dad
passed away in 1989, his funeral represented some of the finest people in the world, but it also
represented some of the poorest people financially. It represented people that came to his funeral
because of what my dad stood for. The stories of how kind and how caring my dad was were as
numerous as the stories of how much this man loved God. In my tribute written in 1963 I realized then
what a special man that my father was. Close to 1000 people came to pay their respects to my dad at his
funeral. My Daddy was one of the easiest songs I've ever had the pleasure of penning.
Diane: This was the flip side of My Daddy. Diane came from an experience that happened early in my
high school years. Her daddy owned a body shop in the local town and she was really something to look
at. Although I never dated this lady or ever had anything to do with her, she was one of those things
that God put on earth to admire. Desire is something we all have experienced at one time or another in
our life and I had this desire to have some kind of relationship with this woman. I believe this woman
was three or four years older than I was at the time that I wrote this song. I don't even think she knew
that I wrote the song for her. I don't believe I even said Hi to her. I was pretty shy back in those days
and pretty much kept my thoughts to myself. The fact is that by the time I released Diane she and her
family moved to heaven knows where. That was 44 years ago and to this day I couldn't tell you where
she moved to.
Fortune Teller: Fantasies do the world make. I read that somewhere along the way and this song is
living proof that kind of thing happens. This song stems from a trip to the local fair and at the fair was a
really good looking Fortune Teller. At least that's what the sign said. A bunch of us young studs were
enjoying the fair when someone spotted this sign. The girl that was supposedly the Fortune Teller was
we thought maybe a gypsy. She was Beautiful. She had a dark complextion with dark eyes and black
hair and was gorgeous. We all joked about our visit with this woman. However I went one step further
and wrote this song about her and I teaming up to spend our life together. As my friend told me when I
played the song for him. "Only in your dreams." He was right. In February of 1966 I joined Uncle Sam's
Army and went away for three years. But you know to this day I can still see that beautiful woman that
told our fortunes in the summer of 1965. By the way, nothing that she told me that day has ever been
my experience in this life.
You Are The One: This song came about by experimentation. Actually what I wrote was the melody at
first. I played this song instrumentally for quite a while before adding lyrics. I was at a point in my life
when I was experimenting with different chord progressions. Every musician that I know of goes
through a stage like this. I discovered the chords C major, A minor, D seventh and G seventh. I also
found that if you threw a E minor into this chord progression it made for an interesting melody. People
seemed to like the sound of this song but one time when I played it at the Carousel in Wausau a man
from the Chicago area suggested that I put words to this song. That's how the song You Are The One
came about to be.
Walking The Floor: This song was recorded three times but never released. The song actually came
from a hit that was recorded by Ernest Tubb in the 30's. It was always one of my favorite songs out of
country music and I tried to write something conveying the same message, hence the reason it is so
up-tempo. A friend of my dad's listened to the song and suggested a word change. I agreed and that's
the way it was recorded in 1963. Mr. Tubb's composition is called Walking The Floor Over You and my
composition is called Walking The Floor. Although similar in tempos and song titles, the actual song
and melody don't even come close to each other. I've had several people in the recording industry
want to do this song on their recordings but because of selfishness or pride or whatever, I never gave
permission to anyone. Although most of my songs are based on real life, this one was not. I simply
wanted to duplicate a sound that I liked in my past and create something different using the same
principles. That's where the song Walking The Floor came from.
Searching: This song was an attempt to write a song that both female and male could sing together.
The idea came from watching the Ed Sullivan show one Sunday night and I saw two artists, male and
female singing back and forth kind of answering each other. I said I can write a song like that and I
wrote Searching. To this day i couldn't tell you who the artists were that I heard on the show. But when
I was in the studio with my brother and cousin, I was looking for something to put on the flip side of Evil
Girl. My brother suggested Searching. I made the comment that the song was written for two people
male and female to sing together and he asked, So What? And so it came to be that I recorded
Searching for the back side of Evil Girl.
Evil Girl: This song is basically the way it happened. When I got out of service in November of 1969 I
met this young filly and had some kind of relationship with her, or so I thought. This young lady had a
mean streak in her that I guess she just couldn't control. Her idea of dating someone was pretty much
like Delilah in the Bible. She took great pleasure in hurting the ones she was involved with. It was
really quite a shame because she had everything going for her. She had intelligence and good looks.
After I had heard from her girlfriends what her battle plan was I basically turned the tables on her and
left her standing quite embarrassed instead of becoming one of her victims as so many before me had
become. This was the song I went into the studio to record in early 1970. I got a great pleasure out of
giving her the first record off the stack and I was not on her popularity list for quite some time. That
was over 35 years ago and this same girl is married now and has four children.
Tonight: Now back in the early 60's and 70's I probably set my sights too high on the woman that I tried
so hard to impress. They were generally the equivalents of Annette Funicello and Shelly Fabares and
Ann Margaret and Sally Fields and they were quite frankly a lot higher class than I was at the time. But
then again you can't blame a man for trying. Anyway the songs that I wrote in the early 60's and 70's
generally dealt with woman that I thought would look nice hanging on my arm. However the description
tall, dark and handsome eluded me in my early days. I was not the specimen that many women wanted
anything to do with. I was short, red haired and freckles all over my body. The only female that was
interested in at that time was my loving mother. So i would write songs like Tonight to make up for the
loneliness that I was experiencing. Tonight, hey what you doing tonight the first line in the song,
simply stated that in other words I was about to be shot down once again when asking for a date with
an angel. But hadn't it been for that time in my life of trying for girls that I shouldn't have had my sights
on, I would not have been able to write songs that dealt with life the way it was back then.
No Love: This was the time when Tom Jones entered my life. 1970!!! The girl I was dating I know,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, had Tom Jones offered to put his shoes under her bed, I would have
become a thing of her past. This girl never missed a Tom Jones show. Every week I sat there on the
couch with a very intrigued and eyes glued to the TV set woman who didn't even know that I was sitting
beside her on the couch when Mr. Teen idol Tom Jones was giving his show. When Tom Jones was
present, I was not. This young lady had a real hang-up for Tom Jones and so in the song No Love I
wrote about her and her love affair with her idol Tom Jones and me. That was 37 years ago and you
know I still think about her even to this day. Wondering if she ever got over Mr. Tom Jones... Guess I'll
never know.
Deer Hunting Season Again: in Wisconsin most young boys get to experience the art of Deer hunting
with their families, relation and friends. And in most cases it is an experience that will be remembered
a long, long time. Well after 50 years of hunting, I started when I was 10, and after 50 years of hunting
experiences, 40 of that with my family and friends I wrote the song Deer Hunting Season Again. Most of
the things that happen in the song actually happened in my life. The part about Uncle Joe sitting on the
wood stove is not entirely true. It wasn't Uncle Joe and it wasn't at deer camp. It happened at a bar
that I was going to when I was 17 and all my school friends were 18. I watched a very intoxicated man
prop his butt down on the wood stove. He let out a blood curdling yell that could be heard probably
two blocks away. They took him up to emergency and he couldn't sit for a month.
The part about Grandpa Earl shooting the neighbors cow is also something that didn't happen the way I
said in the song. Again it was someone else, but it did happen during the Wisconsin Gun Season. It
seems this guy from Chicago came up hunting in the North woods and shot the neighbors purebred
Jersey cow that was standing in the barnyard.
The part about the wife packing the socks in the gun case isn't politically correct in that it wasn't his
socks but his underwear and my brother received one heck of a tongue lashing when he got home. He
had complained that he didn't have any clean underwear and his wife informed him if he had really
hunted like he claimed he did he would have found the underwear packed where she put it, in his gun
case.
Another thing that happened in deer camp but was not put in the song was when my other brother
came down to hunting camp and unloaded as he always did, the camp food. Then he turned to get his
rifle and realized that he had left it at home on the table. Fortunately his wife and her mother drove the
60 miles and brought my brother his rifle. Bless their hearts.
The part in the song about falling into the swamp on a cold November Morning is also true.
The temperature that particular morning was 18 below and we drove this swamp. I heard my brother go
through the ice and I went over and checked the situation out. There he was in the middle of this
creek that was only about three feet deep. He had this blaze orange poncho on and it was spread out
across the top of the ice like a ladies dress. It really was quite a sight to see. By the time we got him
back to the car he was likely darn near froze solid. That ended my brother's day of deer hunting. That
was the same brother that forgot his rifle.
Drinking beer and chasers at deer camp is SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure) Crawling out of the
sack at three AM is also SOP. In a lot of cases the first place to go is the outhouse. Hence the reason
for trying to get up before anyone else. When you get up and try the legs out on the morning after,
you usually end up staggering.
Taking a Nature Call in the middle of the day is par for the course. You quickly learn to take the hat off
before attempting this feat because if you don't I think the blood rushes to the head and causes a
severe pain in the head more commonly known as a headache. In reference to this situation brings up
the need for sleep. Some guys just fall asleep in their stands, but as the song points out you don't
have to worry about them freezing to death because the alcohol in the system will keep them from
freezing. When I hunted with about 10 to 20 guys in a deer camp we very rarely got venison for
ourselves let alone camp meat.
After missing a few deer, the total deer count after the nine day hunt usually netted three to four deer.
So with all these memories plus eighty dozen more I wrote Deer hunting Season Again. I hope you
people enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Your Memory: This is one of my favorite songs that was written a little over 30 years ago. This song
was actually written for a young lady that left me when I was serving my time in Viet Nam. I dated her
while on my 30 day leave before shipping off to Viet Nam. While I was stationed at Saigon she wrote
and told me that she had found someone else and she was no longer interested in me. When I got
home I found that she and her then husband had moved to Southern California and all I had was this
haunting memory. So that's what I wrote about.
Hello Mister Bartender: This song was written in the year 1967 while I was stationed at Fort Monroe,
Virginia. In Hampton, Virginia I teamed up with a country band and played accordion and did some
vocal work. There was this young lady named Joan that sang with the group and she was good. She
sounded a lot like Loretta Lynn. One time when she and I were talking she challenged me to write
something about her in a song. I wrote the Hello Mister Bartender and did it with the group while I was
with them. She liked the song as did everyone else that heard it. It basically was the story of a man
talking with his favorite friend in the world, the bartender when the love affair goes wrong.
She Don't Love Me Anymore: Another song out of my service years. This song I wrote for a friend who
was suffering from a Dear John letter. Seems he feel head over heels for some Vietnamese woman
and she dumped him. He said to me when we were playing guitars together, "Why not write a song
about missing a woman once she's gone." So, that's what i did. I wrote it for him and his long gone girl.
Miss her voice, miss her kiss, etc. The year was 1968. Now 39 years later I Include it in my newest CD.
Thank You Lord: I have always enjoyed barbershop, especially when it came to Gospel. This song was
written about 1975 and I wrote it because i felt the need for a little spiritual guidance. At the time, my
wife, who has become my ex-wife and I were having some marital problems. My dad kept advising me
to turn to the Lord for answers. Well I don't know if the Lord helped me with that problem as she
served me papers, but I did sit down and write the song Thank You Lord, which has been a real
blessing because every time I've done it for someone else it seems to help them. The song simply
says that we are all God's children and should always do every thing in your power to help your fellow
man. When a man is drowning you don't throw him an anchor, you give him a helping hand. That's what
this song is all about.
Pain In My Past: A humorous look at love gone bad. Relationships often end in something that isn't
considered at the time exactly what you planned. As long as I blamed her for everything, it made me
feel better and it made it easy to write a good song. For quite a while after our relationship I often felt
like she was there beside me always bugging me. Now almost 40 years later, I can see that what
happened in our case was the best for every one concerned. But experience is always the best
teacher and from my divorce came the song Pain In My Past and its a song that everyone seems to
relate to and they seem to enjoy hearing it.
No Disappointments Up There: the song was written in February of 2007 right after my mother passed
away. I wanted to write something that was a little like bluegrass because my association with
bluegrass was always more gospel sounding than anything. After my father passed away 18 years ago
my mother said things that didn't mean that much at the time, but the more she talked to me the more I
knew she was missing Dad. She kept looking forward to the day when she would join dad. Sometimes
in the things she'd say you could detect that this yearning was always there. She talked about the
troubles, the sorrow and the pain that she was feeling. It wasn't the physical pain that people her age
experience, it was a mental pain. The pain also came in something someone had said to her. Mother
had a hard time dealing with dad being gone. She had all the riches in life she needed, but there was
always something missing. I wrote the song starting it with something I knew that was bothering her.
There'll be no more troubles, no more sorrow, no more pain. She kept reminding herself that there
would be no disappointments in heaven. Another line that refers to her thinking and something that
she told me one time is the line, it won't matter what we leave behind. This is a song that actually
turned out to be more of a tribute to the woman I loved that I called Mom. I hope you'll find this song as
thought provoking as I intended it to be when I wrote it.
Tribute To Johnny Cash: This was one of those fun songs I wrote. I knew this girl and although she
was nothing more to me than a friend, she was a very big Johnny Cash fan. I often kidded her about
her love affair with this big tall drink of water known to so many as Johnny Cash. She did not hail from
Reno as the song says, but she actually was from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I met her while attending
College at the Stevens Point campus in the fall of 1963. Although none of the things I wrote in the song
happened, I had a ball writing the song for her. Her comment? I could see something like that all
happening to a really true Johnny Cash fan.
Personally I thought she was a big Johnny Cash fan. I too was a big fan of the man in black and I had a
lot of his early recordings. Using song titles like I Still Miss Someone, Ring Of Fire, Born To Lose and
even mentioning the now famous Cadillac and the suit of black and mentioning his loving wife June
Carter. I was able to convey a humorous vision of this particular Johnny Cash Lover. People that hear
the tune will recognize Folsom Prison Blues. Without the tune I think the song would be just another
Johnny Cash song. I believe in this case the tune has to be one of Johnny's biggest hits. I hope you
will enjoy my tribute to the legendary Johnny Cash.
She's A Woman: When I was entertaining with my brother there were several times when I would have
to drive long distances before I arrived home at about three in the morning. My brother would always
get dropped off at his home and then there was always the 45 minute drive for me before I'd arrive
home. On one such occasion I was thinking about what my wife had told me about me being so down
on myself for being a musician. She told me that what I was doing was the right thing because I made
so many people happy and it also was doing something that I enjoyed. She always told me how much
she supported me and how much she loved me. That inspired the song She's A Woman.
Don't: This is a rock and roll type song with lots of different chords involved with the song.
Written in the 60's it simply tells the woman not to mess up or the man will be gone. It states that the
man don't want to find her with another man. It basically says to the female that if she has it on her
mind to leave or cheat on him for another, she's better tell him first. I have no idea where the idea for
this song came from but I'm willing to bet their was a female at the bottom of it. There usually was.
That's what kept me writing songs all these years.
Your Number One Fool: I remember this song. It came from being in love with someone that just
didn't want me around any longer. I kept thinking yeah, she cheated on me but that didn't make any
difference because if she wanted to come back to me I would take her back even though I was
probably a fool for doing so. I knew if she came back she would just cheat on me all over again. And
like my father told me, you know, love is not only deaf and dumb but it is blind as well. And basically,
that's what this whole song is all about.
Beautiful Woman: The idea for this song came about when I was sitting on a park bench in the local
mall one day while my wife was out spending our hard earned cash. I was watching the people walk by
and there was one young lady in particular that I enjoyed watching. She was just absolutely beautiful. I
thought maybe if she would walk a little slower by me each time I would be able to see and admire the
beauty that God gave to her.
So when I wrote this song that thought came to me and I decided to write a song to include all the
beautiful women in this world as I wrote: Beautiful Lady, Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Woman its you.
Listen To the Children: From the effort of me towards writing a truly Gothic type of song, this was one
of the songs I wrote about 30 years back. The pretend album that was never recorded included this
song. It is a thought provoking song and was intended to be that way. Jesus' love for the little
children was the inspiration behind this song. Jesus loved the little children because of their
innocence and because they didn't have the hate for their fellow man as they did when they became
adults. The song actually consists of the old world and the new world. The first part of the song refers
to the children of the old world. They appear to be so happy because they haven't become influenced
by their superiors as of yet. They are like little children playing with each other, whether they be rich or
poor, white or black, to a child it makes no difference. And then suddenly they grow up and find that
the world is not what they believed it to be. The second part of the song deals with Law Enforcement
and says that they think they are God and that God you will find and believe wears a badge. This is a
belief from the new world. This looks at loving thy neighbor as sinful and wrong. This looks at hugging
a child and showing that you love that child, in the eyes of the law, you are now a pervert. You are a
child molester. The whole song deals with mankind becoming corrupt led by government and law
enforcement and is very much a part of today's society. As you listen to what this song is saying, think
about how far we've come and how backwards in our thinking we are. Just because this song was
written over 30 years ago, it actually belongs in this world not the world that was 30 years back. The
song points out how greedy and hateful people have become.
Its Still Raining: In the year 1972 I was half owner of a teenybopper place in the city of Marshfield,
Wisconsin, which I have recently referred to as SIN CITY. The place was called The Penthouse. It was
non alcoholic and featured different bands so the young kids could have a place to come and dance
and have a good time. That was our intentions. We were losing money hand over fist because people
in that town simply didn't show up to the dances. We decided to give it one more huhrah and we
booked Gary Puckett and the original Union Gap. We thought by booking a big name group we could
possibly pull this thing out. The night before coming to our establishment Gary played to two crowds of
over 1000 people each at Ironwood Michigan and night after his performance at our place he played to
two sold out crowds of over 2500 people each performance. At our club we had a total of 243 people
for one show. At the door people complained about paying $5.00 a ticket to see this show. Well my
cousin and I, who was the other owner, each paid $3700.00 to watch Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
After the show Gary made the statement that he would love to record an album in our place because
the acoustics were exceptional. I told Gary that he would have to do that on his own nickel not ours.
After all was said and gone, my cousin invited me to join him in a stop at Brown's Bar. I declined.
Instead I went up on the stage and sat down at the organ and proceeded to write the song Its Still
Raining. Basically the story of a born loser. So now you know the rest of the story. Enjoy!!!
thoughts or experiences in their minds for years and years and all of a sudden in some song they are
writing, they draw upon these unusual experiences and use those experiences to describe something
that is happening in the song they are writing. In the songs I have written, things are no different for
me, I draw on experiences and thoughts from my past in the songs I have written and recorded. I'll try
to explain each song I wrote and give you an incite as to where this song came form.
Kindly Keep It Country: This song is the very latest of around 150 plus songs that I have written. I had
already recorded all the songs that I was going to record for the CD Kindly Keep It Country. I was
listening to a demo of the CD with a friend of mine and he asked me why I hadn't written a special song
for the CD called Kindly Keep It Country. So after the fact and bass ackwards as always, I sat down and
wrote the song Kindly Keep It Country.
Cooly Mooly: This song came about one day in 1962 when I was supposed to be practicing for a show I
was going to give. I had just purchased the song by Bent Fabric called Alley Cat and was fascinated at
how it was put together. I liked the song a lot. I used the same chords as Alley Cat and did a different
arrangement and I came up with Cooly Mooly. In June of 1963 I recorded it and sold about 27,000
copies at that time.
Judy's Clown: Recorded in June of 1963 on Owl Records. Here is a story that just about every boy or
girl has experienced at one time or another in their life. It's written about a girl whose name was Judy.
And just like the song says she made a clown out of me. I called her one night for a date and she told
me she was going to be out of town with her parents. I decided to go to the local drive in and get a bite
to eat and as I was sitting there eating who should walk into the place but Judy with another fellow. I
then went home and wrote the song Judy's Clown.
My Daddy: Recorded in June of 1964 on the Owl Record Label. There are two men that have stood out
in my life. One was my father and the other was my father in law. Both of these men were super. I
wrote My Daddy back in the year of 1963 right after I recorded the songs Judy's Clown and Cooly Mooly.
The song was written as a tribute to my dad. A kinder person i have never known. When my dad
passed away in 1989, his funeral represented some of the finest people in the world, but it also
represented some of the poorest people financially. It represented people that came to his funeral
because of what my dad stood for. The stories of how kind and how caring my dad was were as
numerous as the stories of how much this man loved God. In my tribute written in 1963 I realized then
what a special man that my father was. Close to 1000 people came to pay their respects to my dad at his
funeral. My Daddy was one of the easiest songs I've ever had the pleasure of penning.
Diane: This was the flip side of My Daddy. Diane came from an experience that happened early in my
high school years. Her daddy owned a body shop in the local town and she was really something to look
at. Although I never dated this lady or ever had anything to do with her, she was one of those things
that God put on earth to admire. Desire is something we all have experienced at one time or another in
our life and I had this desire to have some kind of relationship with this woman. I believe this woman
was three or four years older than I was at the time that I wrote this song. I don't even think she knew
that I wrote the song for her. I don't believe I even said Hi to her. I was pretty shy back in those days
and pretty much kept my thoughts to myself. The fact is that by the time I released Diane she and her
family moved to heaven knows where. That was 44 years ago and to this day I couldn't tell you where
she moved to.
Fortune Teller: Fantasies do the world make. I read that somewhere along the way and this song is
living proof that kind of thing happens. This song stems from a trip to the local fair and at the fair was a
really good looking Fortune Teller. At least that's what the sign said. A bunch of us young studs were
enjoying the fair when someone spotted this sign. The girl that was supposedly the Fortune Teller was
we thought maybe a gypsy. She was Beautiful. She had a dark complextion with dark eyes and black
hair and was gorgeous. We all joked about our visit with this woman. However I went one step further
and wrote this song about her and I teaming up to spend our life together. As my friend told me when I
played the song for him. "Only in your dreams." He was right. In February of 1966 I joined Uncle Sam's
Army and went away for three years. But you know to this day I can still see that beautiful woman that
told our fortunes in the summer of 1965. By the way, nothing that she told me that day has ever been
my experience in this life.
You Are The One: This song came about by experimentation. Actually what I wrote was the melody at
first. I played this song instrumentally for quite a while before adding lyrics. I was at a point in my life
when I was experimenting with different chord progressions. Every musician that I know of goes
through a stage like this. I discovered the chords C major, A minor, D seventh and G seventh. I also
found that if you threw a E minor into this chord progression it made for an interesting melody. People
seemed to like the sound of this song but one time when I played it at the Carousel in Wausau a man
from the Chicago area suggested that I put words to this song. That's how the song You Are The One
came about to be.
Walking The Floor: This song was recorded three times but never released. The song actually came
from a hit that was recorded by Ernest Tubb in the 30's. It was always one of my favorite songs out of
country music and I tried to write something conveying the same message, hence the reason it is so
up-tempo. A friend of my dad's listened to the song and suggested a word change. I agreed and that's
the way it was recorded in 1963. Mr. Tubb's composition is called Walking The Floor Over You and my
composition is called Walking The Floor. Although similar in tempos and song titles, the actual song
and melody don't even come close to each other. I've had several people in the recording industry
want to do this song on their recordings but because of selfishness or pride or whatever, I never gave
permission to anyone. Although most of my songs are based on real life, this one was not. I simply
wanted to duplicate a sound that I liked in my past and create something different using the same
principles. That's where the song Walking The Floor came from.
Searching: This song was an attempt to write a song that both female and male could sing together.
The idea came from watching the Ed Sullivan show one Sunday night and I saw two artists, male and
female singing back and forth kind of answering each other. I said I can write a song like that and I
wrote Searching. To this day i couldn't tell you who the artists were that I heard on the show. But when
I was in the studio with my brother and cousin, I was looking for something to put on the flip side of Evil
Girl. My brother suggested Searching. I made the comment that the song was written for two people
male and female to sing together and he asked, So What? And so it came to be that I recorded
Searching for the back side of Evil Girl.
Evil Girl: This song is basically the way it happened. When I got out of service in November of 1969 I
met this young filly and had some kind of relationship with her, or so I thought. This young lady had a
mean streak in her that I guess she just couldn't control. Her idea of dating someone was pretty much
like Delilah in the Bible. She took great pleasure in hurting the ones she was involved with. It was
really quite a shame because she had everything going for her. She had intelligence and good looks.
After I had heard from her girlfriends what her battle plan was I basically turned the tables on her and
left her standing quite embarrassed instead of becoming one of her victims as so many before me had
become. This was the song I went into the studio to record in early 1970. I got a great pleasure out of
giving her the first record off the stack and I was not on her popularity list for quite some time. That
was over 35 years ago and this same girl is married now and has four children.
Tonight: Now back in the early 60's and 70's I probably set my sights too high on the woman that I tried
so hard to impress. They were generally the equivalents of Annette Funicello and Shelly Fabares and
Ann Margaret and Sally Fields and they were quite frankly a lot higher class than I was at the time. But
then again you can't blame a man for trying. Anyway the songs that I wrote in the early 60's and 70's
generally dealt with woman that I thought would look nice hanging on my arm. However the description
tall, dark and handsome eluded me in my early days. I was not the specimen that many women wanted
anything to do with. I was short, red haired and freckles all over my body. The only female that was
interested in at that time was my loving mother. So i would write songs like Tonight to make up for the
loneliness that I was experiencing. Tonight, hey what you doing tonight the first line in the song,
simply stated that in other words I was about to be shot down once again when asking for a date with
an angel. But hadn't it been for that time in my life of trying for girls that I shouldn't have had my sights
on, I would not have been able to write songs that dealt with life the way it was back then.
No Love: This was the time when Tom Jones entered my life. 1970!!! The girl I was dating I know,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, had Tom Jones offered to put his shoes under her bed, I would have
become a thing of her past. This girl never missed a Tom Jones show. Every week I sat there on the
couch with a very intrigued and eyes glued to the TV set woman who didn't even know that I was sitting
beside her on the couch when Mr. Teen idol Tom Jones was giving his show. When Tom Jones was
present, I was not. This young lady had a real hang-up for Tom Jones and so in the song No Love I
wrote about her and her love affair with her idol Tom Jones and me. That was 37 years ago and you
know I still think about her even to this day. Wondering if she ever got over Mr. Tom Jones... Guess I'll
never know.
Deer Hunting Season Again: in Wisconsin most young boys get to experience the art of Deer hunting
with their families, relation and friends. And in most cases it is an experience that will be remembered
a long, long time. Well after 50 years of hunting, I started when I was 10, and after 50 years of hunting
experiences, 40 of that with my family and friends I wrote the song Deer Hunting Season Again. Most of
the things that happen in the song actually happened in my life. The part about Uncle Joe sitting on the
wood stove is not entirely true. It wasn't Uncle Joe and it wasn't at deer camp. It happened at a bar
that I was going to when I was 17 and all my school friends were 18. I watched a very intoxicated man
prop his butt down on the wood stove. He let out a blood curdling yell that could be heard probably
two blocks away. They took him up to emergency and he couldn't sit for a month.
The part about Grandpa Earl shooting the neighbors cow is also something that didn't happen the way I
said in the song. Again it was someone else, but it did happen during the Wisconsin Gun Season. It
seems this guy from Chicago came up hunting in the North woods and shot the neighbors purebred
Jersey cow that was standing in the barnyard.
The part about the wife packing the socks in the gun case isn't politically correct in that it wasn't his
socks but his underwear and my brother received one heck of a tongue lashing when he got home. He
had complained that he didn't have any clean underwear and his wife informed him if he had really
hunted like he claimed he did he would have found the underwear packed where she put it, in his gun
case.
Another thing that happened in deer camp but was not put in the song was when my other brother
came down to hunting camp and unloaded as he always did, the camp food. Then he turned to get his
rifle and realized that he had left it at home on the table. Fortunately his wife and her mother drove the
60 miles and brought my brother his rifle. Bless their hearts.
The part in the song about falling into the swamp on a cold November Morning is also true.
The temperature that particular morning was 18 below and we drove this swamp. I heard my brother go
through the ice and I went over and checked the situation out. There he was in the middle of this
creek that was only about three feet deep. He had this blaze orange poncho on and it was spread out
across the top of the ice like a ladies dress. It really was quite a sight to see. By the time we got him
back to the car he was likely darn near froze solid. That ended my brother's day of deer hunting. That
was the same brother that forgot his rifle.
Drinking beer and chasers at deer camp is SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure) Crawling out of the
sack at three AM is also SOP. In a lot of cases the first place to go is the outhouse. Hence the reason
for trying to get up before anyone else. When you get up and try the legs out on the morning after,
you usually end up staggering.
Taking a Nature Call in the middle of the day is par for the course. You quickly learn to take the hat off
before attempting this feat because if you don't I think the blood rushes to the head and causes a
severe pain in the head more commonly known as a headache. In reference to this situation brings up
the need for sleep. Some guys just fall asleep in their stands, but as the song points out you don't
have to worry about them freezing to death because the alcohol in the system will keep them from
freezing. When I hunted with about 10 to 20 guys in a deer camp we very rarely got venison for
ourselves let alone camp meat.
After missing a few deer, the total deer count after the nine day hunt usually netted three to four deer.
So with all these memories plus eighty dozen more I wrote Deer hunting Season Again. I hope you
people enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Your Memory: This is one of my favorite songs that was written a little over 30 years ago. This song
was actually written for a young lady that left me when I was serving my time in Viet Nam. I dated her
while on my 30 day leave before shipping off to Viet Nam. While I was stationed at Saigon she wrote
and told me that she had found someone else and she was no longer interested in me. When I got
home I found that she and her then husband had moved to Southern California and all I had was this
haunting memory. So that's what I wrote about.
Hello Mister Bartender: This song was written in the year 1967 while I was stationed at Fort Monroe,
Virginia. In Hampton, Virginia I teamed up with a country band and played accordion and did some
vocal work. There was this young lady named Joan that sang with the group and she was good. She
sounded a lot like Loretta Lynn. One time when she and I were talking she challenged me to write
something about her in a song. I wrote the Hello Mister Bartender and did it with the group while I was
with them. She liked the song as did everyone else that heard it. It basically was the story of a man
talking with his favorite friend in the world, the bartender when the love affair goes wrong.
She Don't Love Me Anymore: Another song out of my service years. This song I wrote for a friend who
was suffering from a Dear John letter. Seems he feel head over heels for some Vietnamese woman
and she dumped him. He said to me when we were playing guitars together, "Why not write a song
about missing a woman once she's gone." So, that's what i did. I wrote it for him and his long gone girl.
Miss her voice, miss her kiss, etc. The year was 1968. Now 39 years later I Include it in my newest CD.
Thank You Lord: I have always enjoyed barbershop, especially when it came to Gospel. This song was
written about 1975 and I wrote it because i felt the need for a little spiritual guidance. At the time, my
wife, who has become my ex-wife and I were having some marital problems. My dad kept advising me
to turn to the Lord for answers. Well I don't know if the Lord helped me with that problem as she
served me papers, but I did sit down and write the song Thank You Lord, which has been a real
blessing because every time I've done it for someone else it seems to help them. The song simply
says that we are all God's children and should always do every thing in your power to help your fellow
man. When a man is drowning you don't throw him an anchor, you give him a helping hand. That's what
this song is all about.
Pain In My Past: A humorous look at love gone bad. Relationships often end in something that isn't
considered at the time exactly what you planned. As long as I blamed her for everything, it made me
feel better and it made it easy to write a good song. For quite a while after our relationship I often felt
like she was there beside me always bugging me. Now almost 40 years later, I can see that what
happened in our case was the best for every one concerned. But experience is always the best
teacher and from my divorce came the song Pain In My Past and its a song that everyone seems to
relate to and they seem to enjoy hearing it.
No Disappointments Up There: the song was written in February of 2007 right after my mother passed
away. I wanted to write something that was a little like bluegrass because my association with
bluegrass was always more gospel sounding than anything. After my father passed away 18 years ago
my mother said things that didn't mean that much at the time, but the more she talked to me the more I
knew she was missing Dad. She kept looking forward to the day when she would join dad. Sometimes
in the things she'd say you could detect that this yearning was always there. She talked about the
troubles, the sorrow and the pain that she was feeling. It wasn't the physical pain that people her age
experience, it was a mental pain. The pain also came in something someone had said to her. Mother
had a hard time dealing with dad being gone. She had all the riches in life she needed, but there was
always something missing. I wrote the song starting it with something I knew that was bothering her.
There'll be no more troubles, no more sorrow, no more pain. She kept reminding herself that there
would be no disappointments in heaven. Another line that refers to her thinking and something that
she told me one time is the line, it won't matter what we leave behind. This is a song that actually
turned out to be more of a tribute to the woman I loved that I called Mom. I hope you'll find this song as
thought provoking as I intended it to be when I wrote it.
Tribute To Johnny Cash: This was one of those fun songs I wrote. I knew this girl and although she
was nothing more to me than a friend, she was a very big Johnny Cash fan. I often kidded her about
her love affair with this big tall drink of water known to so many as Johnny Cash. She did not hail from
Reno as the song says, but she actually was from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I met her while attending
College at the Stevens Point campus in the fall of 1963. Although none of the things I wrote in the song
happened, I had a ball writing the song for her. Her comment? I could see something like that all
happening to a really true Johnny Cash fan.
Personally I thought she was a big Johnny Cash fan. I too was a big fan of the man in black and I had a
lot of his early recordings. Using song titles like I Still Miss Someone, Ring Of Fire, Born To Lose and
even mentioning the now famous Cadillac and the suit of black and mentioning his loving wife June
Carter. I was able to convey a humorous vision of this particular Johnny Cash Lover. People that hear
the tune will recognize Folsom Prison Blues. Without the tune I think the song would be just another
Johnny Cash song. I believe in this case the tune has to be one of Johnny's biggest hits. I hope you
will enjoy my tribute to the legendary Johnny Cash.
She's A Woman: When I was entertaining with my brother there were several times when I would have
to drive long distances before I arrived home at about three in the morning. My brother would always
get dropped off at his home and then there was always the 45 minute drive for me before I'd arrive
home. On one such occasion I was thinking about what my wife had told me about me being so down
on myself for being a musician. She told me that what I was doing was the right thing because I made
so many people happy and it also was doing something that I enjoyed. She always told me how much
she supported me and how much she loved me. That inspired the song She's A Woman.
Don't: This is a rock and roll type song with lots of different chords involved with the song.
Written in the 60's it simply tells the woman not to mess up or the man will be gone. It states that the
man don't want to find her with another man. It basically says to the female that if she has it on her
mind to leave or cheat on him for another, she's better tell him first. I have no idea where the idea for
this song came from but I'm willing to bet their was a female at the bottom of it. There usually was.
That's what kept me writing songs all these years.
Your Number One Fool: I remember this song. It came from being in love with someone that just
didn't want me around any longer. I kept thinking yeah, she cheated on me but that didn't make any
difference because if she wanted to come back to me I would take her back even though I was
probably a fool for doing so. I knew if she came back she would just cheat on me all over again. And
like my father told me, you know, love is not only deaf and dumb but it is blind as well. And basically,
that's what this whole song is all about.
Beautiful Woman: The idea for this song came about when I was sitting on a park bench in the local
mall one day while my wife was out spending our hard earned cash. I was watching the people walk by
and there was one young lady in particular that I enjoyed watching. She was just absolutely beautiful. I
thought maybe if she would walk a little slower by me each time I would be able to see and admire the
beauty that God gave to her.
So when I wrote this song that thought came to me and I decided to write a song to include all the
beautiful women in this world as I wrote: Beautiful Lady, Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Woman its you.
Listen To the Children: From the effort of me towards writing a truly Gothic type of song, this was one
of the songs I wrote about 30 years back. The pretend album that was never recorded included this
song. It is a thought provoking song and was intended to be that way. Jesus' love for the little
children was the inspiration behind this song. Jesus loved the little children because of their
innocence and because they didn't have the hate for their fellow man as they did when they became
adults. The song actually consists of the old world and the new world. The first part of the song refers
to the children of the old world. They appear to be so happy because they haven't become influenced
by their superiors as of yet. They are like little children playing with each other, whether they be rich or
poor, white or black, to a child it makes no difference. And then suddenly they grow up and find that
the world is not what they believed it to be. The second part of the song deals with Law Enforcement
and says that they think they are God and that God you will find and believe wears a badge. This is a
belief from the new world. This looks at loving thy neighbor as sinful and wrong. This looks at hugging
a child and showing that you love that child, in the eyes of the law, you are now a pervert. You are a
child molester. The whole song deals with mankind becoming corrupt led by government and law
enforcement and is very much a part of today's society. As you listen to what this song is saying, think
about how far we've come and how backwards in our thinking we are. Just because this song was
written over 30 years ago, it actually belongs in this world not the world that was 30 years back. The
song points out how greedy and hateful people have become.
Its Still Raining: In the year 1972 I was half owner of a teenybopper place in the city of Marshfield,
Wisconsin, which I have recently referred to as SIN CITY. The place was called The Penthouse. It was
non alcoholic and featured different bands so the young kids could have a place to come and dance
and have a good time. That was our intentions. We were losing money hand over fist because people
in that town simply didn't show up to the dances. We decided to give it one more huhrah and we
booked Gary Puckett and the original Union Gap. We thought by booking a big name group we could
possibly pull this thing out. The night before coming to our establishment Gary played to two crowds of
over 1000 people each at Ironwood Michigan and night after his performance at our place he played to
two sold out crowds of over 2500 people each performance. At our club we had a total of 243 people
for one show. At the door people complained about paying $5.00 a ticket to see this show. Well my
cousin and I, who was the other owner, each paid $3700.00 to watch Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
After the show Gary made the statement that he would love to record an album in our place because
the acoustics were exceptional. I told Gary that he would have to do that on his own nickel not ours.
After all was said and gone, my cousin invited me to join him in a stop at Brown's Bar. I declined.
Instead I went up on the stage and sat down at the organ and proceeded to write the song Its Still
Raining. Basically the story of a born loser. So now you know the rest of the story. Enjoy!!!
| History Of Songs... |
| Updated September 7th, 2007 |
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