Original subtitles

I'm a songwriter,

singer songwriter, you know, and I'm not...

by any stretch of the imagination,

George Strait. Hell, no.

When I figured out he could sing better than I could,

and he loved my songs, I thought, there you go.

That's the ticket.

You write the song, let him sing it.

♪ Flowed through my veins

♪ Since I was born

♪ Turns you cold

♪ Keeps you warm

♪ There's no escape, it won't leave you alone ♪

♪ When you're a song

♪ You're so blessed

♪ Yet so cursed

♪ 'Cause every breath

♪ Is another verse

♪ You hurt like hell

♪ The whole world sings along

♪ When you're a song

♪ Goodbye, farewell

♪ So long

♪ Vaya con Dios, good luck

♪ Wish you well

♪ Take it slow

♪ Easy come, girl, easy go.

You know, Dean and I, you know, we've had a special relationship,

no doubt about it.

The only other relationship, you know, that I can think of

is Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Dean Dillon and George Strait are brothers.

They've been brothers since they were both born.

He has a way of making you relive...

He-he's almost like a therapy session, in a way.

If you listen to a Dean Dillon song, he will make you

relive all the bad stuff in your life,

all the good stuff in your life,

and at the end you're okay.

He was one of the guys I aspired to.

I wanted to be like that.

And I came outta Texas worshiping Guy Clark

and Towns and those guys, and Dean had that kinda

cool soft spoken sensibility and those great rhymes.

When we would hang out at somebody's house

or in a bar or something in Texas, we would talk about

Dean Dillon being this genius songwriter,

I mean it was just like somebody beyond

that you would never meet and that was like, you know,

lived in the clouds and that would never happen.

Dean's just a... Dean's a first rate song writer.

He's-he's top of my list.

♪ Vaya con Dios, good luck

You know, George is here tonight

at T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Gonna get up tonight and sing a couple songs with him.

You know, always a thrill to hear him do one of my songs.

It never gets old.

Pink room.

Just perfect for a tough man to wear pink.

There you go.

All my fault.

We're gonna rock the hell out of it.

I want you to welcome my friend, Mr. Dean Dillon today.

I was unaware, when I first moved to town

of George Strait. One of the first songs I ever heard

of George Strait's, and it might've been his

first single, I'm not sure.

But I was a freshman in high school,

and I heard a song called "Unwound."

♪ That woman that I had wrapped around my finger ♪

♪ Just come unwound

I didn't know Dean wrote that song,

but I knew I loved George's record, I loved it.

♪ That woman that's been wrapped around my finger just come unwound ♪

Then I found out who wrote it

and that's where I, after that, just about every song

you heard of George's, you found out Dean wrote that song.

Living, breathing, he's the greatest songwriter

in this city, there is no doubt about it.

I was here and got to see the last of these guys,

and I called 'em giants

that got to roam Music Row.

And hopefully I got to be in the room with 'em.

And the only thing I needed to do

was to stand back and keep my fucking mouth shut.

When this community talks about the 1% of songwriters,

the top 1%, Dean Dillon's been in that top 1%

for more than 30 years.

I don't even know if Dean knows how important

he was to my career.

I'd had, "Maybe It was Memphis,"

which was a song of the year. My song of the year.

But you're looking for that thing to get you

over the sophomore slump.

So second album, I got with Dean

and we wrote "Spilled Perfume,"

and that was my first platinum record.

♪ There's no use crying

♪ Over spilled perfume

Dean has a way of writing really simple songs

that said everything.

And there is a genius to that,

that it's, uh, you can't put your finger on.

You can't sit there and say,

you can't say, okay, this is how you write songs,

because nobody knows how to do it but Dean.

I just don't see that in country music today.

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of people

that go to Dean for songs, but I don't know

how many of 'em have his songs on every record

they ever recorded.

Spent my whole life doing it,

and there's nothing else to do, in my book.

I'm not gonna do anything else.

Or I can't do anything else.

I guess I could, but I don't think I'd be very good at it.

We were dirt poor.

My mother was a waitress in a truck stop.

She met my dad there at the restaurant.

He was a long haul trucker.

He was 40 years old and she was 18.

And my grandfather, Bryce Field,

He didn't particularly like that scenario.

Two weeks after I was born, my dad came to see me

for the first time.

He came in off the road, he'd been out on the road driving

and pulled down the driveway, this old gravel drive...

and the minute he pulled up next to the house,

my grandfather stepped out on the porch

and had a shotgun.

And he pulled the first trigger...

and hit him in the arm.

He threw up his arm,

and he hit him here in the arm,

pulled the other trigger, and knocked the gun barrel

up in the air or he'd a killed him.

He was just that kinda guy, my grandfather was.

Uh, and my dad, he threw that car in reverse, never came back.

And hell, I can't blame him.

If there was that kinda bad blood

between my grandfather and my father,

then I don't believe I would've stayed

in that situation, either, but shortly after that,

she got divorced and so my grandparents raised me.

The way he grew up and the hardships that he had

to face, you know, growing up,

certainly influenced

the way that he wrote and writes.

When you're as creative as Dean Dillon is,

and when you live inside your own insanity

like Dean does, I believe...

you channel everything that happened to you

as a young man and as a young person that gave you fuel

to go and try to create something beautiful

and wonderful and extraordinary.

When I was five years old, my mom remarried.

And they came and got me and took me

to Melvindale, Michigan, and it broke my heart.

Because I had been raised with my uncles,

when they told me we were moving back to Tennessee,

I jumped up for joy, and then they said,

but wait a minute, you can't go.

We're gonna take you to Virginia and drop you off

at your grandmother's, whom I'd never met.

So by the time, I was 10 years old,

I really didn't know who I belonged to.

The only friend I found in that whole thing

was that tiger stripe Stella guitar.

I slept with the damned thing.

My childhood was not great, either...

and so I think that had a lot of influences

on the way that I look at life,

and I'm sure he's the same way.

♪ We said good-bye in Marina Del Rey ♪

♪ "I had a good time" was the last thing I heard her say ♪

♪ As I walked away

If there's a songwriter that's hypersensitive

to people and places and things and their surroundings,

it is Dean Dillon.

When millions of people gravitate to something,

and tears come out of their eyes

when they hear that song, you realize

how important it is, but also,

there's something really, really special

for all those words to land in the right place.

And he played "Marina Del Rey."

He goes, ah, he goes, ah, I don't think you're gonna

like this, but you know, it's just one of the songs

on here, just give it a listen.

He said, I don't think it's really for you,

but just listen to it.

And I listened to "Marina Del Rey,"

and I go, whoa, dude, can I have that?

♪ Like castaways

♪ In Marina Del Rey

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles.

I think seven years old,

well, everybody in the world, I think,

sat down that night in front of the TV if you had one,

and I thought if music can have that impact

on a soul, on a human being,

I darn sure wanna be a part of that.

When I was 16 years old, my uncle Ronnie

dated a girl that was in

with Merle Haggard and the Strangers.

Now, I remember getting in my uncle's car

and we drive to Knoxville at a Holiday Inn,

and we beat on the door there and Merle Haggard

opens the door, and all the Strangers.

He says, sit down, kid, said, play me some songs.

And I played him, I think, four or five

of the worst pieces of crap you've ever heard

in your life, and he looked at me and he said,

you've got about seven years before you start writing

the caliber of stuff that people will start recording.

And what was funny about that,

it was almost seven years to the year

that I, you know, started having hit records.

It was pretty eerie.

Shortly after I graduated from high school,

I stuck my thumb out on the side of the interstate

at the Oak Ridge Gallaher View exit and chased my dream.

He came to town for the first time and hitchhiked here

at 17 years old, and a hippie picked him up.

Hey, thanks for stopping.

Yeah, man, where you headed?

Nashville.

I'm going by there.

Jump on in.

I sit down on the front seat,

and the moment I sit down in the front seat

with him and he looked at me and he goes,

you smoke pot?

And I said, duh.

And I thought, we're either gonna have

a hell of a time getting there,

or we ain't gonna make her.

What are you doing in Nashville?

Well, I'm a songwriter.

Ha, good luck.

I think really being a good songwriter

has to start with, at some point in your life

really being hungry.

Something got inside of him and lit a fire

and lit this brain up.

And lit his soul to make him want to be creative

and to find commonality with people.

He made it on his own, he did it on his own.

He went to Nashville on his own.

He wanted... He had that fire in him

that he knew that he could write.

I got into town and didn't know a soul

and somebody pointed Music Row out to me and...

Thought I'll go to these publishing companies

and these record labels and just walk in cold

and I asked the receptionist if there was anybody there

who'd listen to my music

and about that time, this big old guy walks around there,

out of the hall there and says, yeah, man,

come on back, I'll listen to your songs.

And we went in his office and the telephone rang

and he talked like on that phone for what I thought

was forever, and I'm sitting there twiddling my thumbs,

nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Finally he hangs the phone up

Hey, I gotta go, I got this long-haired hippie

just came into my office.

Looks at me and he goes, I'll tell you what, kid,

Go get a haircut, come back,

and then I'll listen to your music.

That didn't sit too well with me.

I beat on a few more doors.

He ended up going down here at the bar.

He went in there and Faron Young was sitting

there on the bar stool.

He said, kid, what do you do?

He said, I'm a songwriter, I just moved here.

He said, set your ass up there, let's drink.

And he just kept pouring Dean beer, beer, beer, beer.

Then he goes, I don't feel too well.

He says, come here, boy, and he grabbed him by the arm

Said, come in the bathroom here with me.

And he said, do this, and he starts sticking his finger down his throat,

and he just puked everywhere.

Grabbed him by the collar, set him back up on the bar stool.

Get that boy another beer.

At that point he was, you know, young guy,

but he was a whiskey-drinking, hell-raising guy.

I mean he was, I think he thought he was Hank Williams.

Or wanted to be Hank Williams, you know.

Ever since the Outlaw project broke wide open,

it was such a huge album, the music business always

looked for the next outlaw.

The funny things is, so many times people portrayed

themselves as the outlaw, and yet they've never

really done anything rebellious in their life.

Dean Dillon never portrayed himself as an outlaw.

He absolutely was an authentic outlaw.

He was on the edge.

You know, but his talent was so massive

you know, I mean, it was part of the package.

Being wild and reckless was part of Dean Dillon.

When you talk about Dean and as I've said,

he's like a brother to so many artists,

um, I would think that this was his first music brother.

Gary Stewart.

These two guys were great for each other,

and they probably weren't so great for each other at times.

There was cocaine, you know?

And me and him and Gary were in the back seat

of a taxi and we were, decided we should do

all that cocaine before we got to the airport.

So we're bent over down thinking-

trying to get where the taxi driver couldn't see us

snorting all that stuff we could.

The best country music honky tonk singer ever born

to ever draw breath was Gary Stewart.

I mean, I thought Gary was the greatest raw honky tonk

singer I ever heard. He kinda reminded me

of a wild Jerry Lee Lewis, and every song

was drinking, every song was misery and heartache

and he could sell it, and then Dean's over here

writing all these wonderful songs that everybody's recording

that you love, and I thought

if they could've stayed together long enough

that they could've been a dynamic duo.

I finally got a job portraying Hank Williams...

in a Country Music USA show at Opryland,

which was a big theme park back in those days.

And I walked on stage and I did my three songs

and I walked off stage and there stood that guy.

He said, that was great.

He said, can you come to my office next week?

I wanna hear some more of your stuff.

And I looked at him and I said,

get your hair cut and I will.

True story.

You can't make that shit up.

Dean came to town and slept in a coal bin

over here off of 18th Avenue, down in the basement.

Frank Dycus was an old songwriter

who ran Au Par Publishing Company.

And, 'course, Dolly and Porter had the downstairs studio

and then there was a coal bin under there.

I'll let you play with some of those songs,

and lemme see what I can do with 'em.

And you can work around here in the office

in the studio, but I ain't gonna let you sleep here.

Don't know you. I ain't givin' you a key yet.

So he made him sleep down there in the coal bin.

Anywhere to lay your head sounded good to me.

And he said, he'd peek out that hole

and there'd be, like, Porter Wagner in that rhinestone suit

and Dolly and the whole damned thing

coming off that bus, you know?

And he was like, wow, that's country music right there,

I mean, Porter and Dolly.

I first heard of Dean when a songwriter in the company

named John Schweers had gone to Opryland.

Well, the country singer was Dean Dillon,

so I signed him for, he liked to tell everybody,

for $50 a week, but he would've taken 25.

Dean always wore this little floppy looking hat

and he would come in the office with a guitar

in one hand, no case, and a bottle of whiskey

in the other hand.

It was just instant friendship.

I heard Carol King and James Taylor

and it changed my whole agenda.

I thought, you know, if you could take

those kinda melodies and put 'em to these

Merle Haggard lyric driven songs,

you'd have a gold mine.

And to me, he might argue with you,

but to me, where he really killed Nashville

was with his melodies.

I don't know what the connection we had,

but I got an idea that was all about the melody.

'Cause I'm a melody guy, and Dean's one of the best

melody guys that I've ever known.

So that's where I started pushing myself.

1979 I had my first number one record.

And I remember the first time I heard it on the radio

I was going under the Fessler's Lane overpass,

I had my radio turned on and it came on the radio

and I pulled over and cried.

Incredible

that one of my songs was actually good enough

to get played on a radio station.

For a songwriter that's really good,

you know, that's getting cuts and stuff

they normally won't take a chance on an artist

that maybe has just gotten signed and they never heard

of, and I was writing back in those days,

but I didn't really have a lot of confidence

in the songs that I was writing,

and I thought-I thought, well, maybe I should look

other places and I'd just gotten out of the army

and immediately started looking for a band.

That's where the Ace in the Hole band started,

was in those days.

Played Green Hall, we played all of these places around

that had the dance hall, we played 'em.

And we were just playing music,

just having a great time,

not making a lot of money, and there were times

when I really did almost quit, just to,

and go back to doing something,

agriculture. Fortunately, I didn't

and I kept going, but I was real fortunate

that Dean and Frank took a chance on me

and ended up signing with MCA.

I struck up a conversation with a guy

named Shel Silverstein.

Talked Shel into writing a song with me.

And by noon, we had the worst country song

known to man written.

Shel was writing songs like "A Boy Named Sue."

I mean just big old country music records.

I'm thinking, man, I have blown my chance.

So I'm walking out of Third Coast,

when lo and behold, look who's walking through the gate

coming in, it's Frank Dycus.

I said Dycus, it's Dean, you 'member me?

I said I got a record deal and an idea for a song.

He goes, I remember you, kid.

What's your song idea?

She's got me wrapped around her finger,

but tonight I'm gonna unwind, which I thought

was a great idea, and he thought for a minute

and he looked back at me, and he goes,

well, how 'bout that woman that I had

wrapped around my finger, just come unwound?

And when I heard him say that, I thought,

man, that's better, that's even better.

We wrote that song 'bout 45 minutes.

I'd bummed a case of beer off this Budweiser truck

that come by the house. He'd bet me 10 bucks

I couldn't do it.

So we're sitting there popping tops

on them beers and shaking and how-dying

and high fiving 'cause we'd written that song

we thought was pretty good,

and 'bout that time, this old boy

comes flying down the street, pulls up the curb,

rolls his window down, says hey, he said,

I'm cutting this kid from Texas,

I need some songs for him.

Y'all got anything?

Well, that old boy was Blake Mevis.

I told him, I said, yeah, man,

we just finished this thing called "Unwound."

We was gonna pitch it to Johnny Paycheck,

but he's in jail.

Thinking that Paycheck might cut that song,

and I think he was in jail or something,

I don't know what it was, but,

so I ended up getting "Unwound."

And that started a whole big mess.

♪ Give me a bottle

♪ Of your very best

♪ 'Cause I've got a problem

♪ I'm gonna drink off my chest

Pretty much that's how I found material

for that first record.

I don't remember all the songs on there,

but I think there was probably five songs

on there that Dean Dillon and Frank Dycus wrote.

That Dean had that way of writing songs that was

right in George's vocal wheelhouse.

♪ 'Cause nobody in his right mind would've left her ♪

♪ I had to be crazy to say goodbye ♪

♪ Nobody in his right mind would've left her ♪

♪ Even my heart was smart enough to stay behind ♪

Sitting in a bar one night.

Imagine that.

This lady walked in named Jeannie Seely.

And she said, I got somebody that wants to meet you.

And I said, well, who might that be?

And she said, Hank Cochran,

and I like to have fell out of my chair.

Hank is Dean.

What Hank... What Dean Dillon did as a songwriter was

he took the lyric form and the heart

of a Hank Cochran, he just took all that stuff

from the 60s and 70s that he grew up on.

He was just taking what those guys did

and just taking it up about five or six more notches.

Just about everything he writes is light years

ahead of everybody else.

I did happen to meet Hank Cochran by accident

when I first moved to town.

And knew him a little bit, and knew he and Dean

were writing a lot, so I knew besides the Strait songs,

you know, Dean was more than legit.

And a real long story short,

he asked me to play a song and then that led to another song

and another song and at four o'clock in the morning,

four o'clock seems to be my witching hour,

for some reason, but he finally said, okay, that's enough.

And he said... Looked at me and he goes,

you wanna go to the Bahamas with me in the morning?

Dean can say so much in just amount

of words just like this.

It's like Hank said, you know, and Dean said the same thing.

If it looks this big on paper, that means it's great.

And for the next few years,

we lived on a boat called The Legend.

And we did nothing... that was legal.

And I actually drunk myself sober that night.

And it is possible, I've done it.

And at four o'clock in the morning,

I looked at old Hank and I said,

♪ Well, excuse me

♪ But I think you've got my chair ♪

Him and Hank Cochran wrote that somewhere

in I don't know, Florida, or there on Hank's boat,

or I don't know the story really,

but it was something like that.

And could there be a better song than "The Chair?"

I mean, melody wise, and story wise,

it's just so well written.

♪ Oh, if you don't mind,

♪ Could I talk you out of a light ♪

That's still one of my favorite songs to do on stage.

♪ Well, thank you, could I drink you a buy ♪

♪ Oh, listen to me

♪ What I mean is can I buy you a drink? ♪

♪ Anything you please

We got through the first verse in five minutes.

It just poured down on paper.

Then we got stuck.

And as he often did, he got up and walked around

that boat, pulling on that beard, He walked back in there,

he looked at me, he said how about this?

Well, thank you. Can I drink you a buy? Oh, listen to me.

What I mean is can I buy you a drink? Anything you please.

I thought this is the most brilliant thing

I've ever heard in my life.

♪ No, I don't mind at all

♪ Oh, I like you too

♪ And to tell you the truth

♪ That wasn't my chair after all ♪

♪ Oh, I like you too

♪ And to tell you the truth

♪ Oh, that wasn't my chair after all ♪

♪ Doo doo doo doo doo

We finished the song and I think it was the next day

we got a call, I did, from George,

he goes, where are you and when are you coming back?

I'm doing a new album.

I said, well, I'm not telling you where I'm at,

and I ain't coming back to Nashville.

And Hank goes, well, now, hold on a minute here,

we're running a little low on money.

I write all the melodies to stuff I do,

and I just couldn't get a good finish on that,

on this song, and he said, well, play this.

He said, play...

And if you listen to that melody,

because everybody, like I said, at that time,

takes a little bit about of every songwriter,

♪ I love you too and to tell you the truth ♪

♪ That wasn't my chair after all ♪

And I said, Hank, we can't do that.

And he goes, why not?

And I said, 'cause that's

♪ Crazy for cryin'

♪ Crazy for tryin'

♪ And I'm crazy for loving you

Yeah.

And I said, you know, one person that I don't want

pissed off at me is Willie Nelson.

And he goes, and I swear to God, this is what he said,

he goes, well, Willie won't mind.

And here's why he said that.

1965, I think, Hank was writing for Pamper Music,

Pamper Publishing Company.

And the owner came to him and said, man,

you're doing so good, we're gonna up your draw

$25,000 a year.

And Hank said, no, you're not.

And he said you're gonna take that $25,000

and sign Willie Nelson.

And that's what they did.

And so Willie didn't mind.

Dean was making records on RCA at the time,

and so I became his bass player,

so I went out on the road with him when he'd do gigs.

He got a record deal as well, shortly after I did.

Before I started this journey, I had,

actually had his Slick Nickel record.

I just loved it.

Although Dean had record deals and made some great albums,

I don't think Dean's voice was particularly suited

for country radio at that particular time.

As Bob Dillon had difficulty at times with popular radio.

I get this call from Erv Woolsey,

and he asked me if I wanna meet George,

and I'm like, of course I do, you know,

up until... I think we'd had three or four records,

and I'd never met the guy.

He was kinda focused on his recording career

and I was focused on my recording career,

and I was still trying to suck songs outta Dean

that he wasn't gonna cut.

I think that the highest charted single

I ever got to was 30 something.

I was kinda jealous a little bit.

I mean, I go down there and walk in, walk up to his table,

we shake and howdy, and you know, I'm chain smoking Marlboros,

and he looked at me and said, man, you mind

not smoking? He said, that smoke really messes with me.

And I went, you mean, that?

Kinda blowed that, and it was like, you know what I mean?

And I think Erv was going, eh.

You know what I mean?

It was like, what are you doing?

You know?

I'll have to go along with

if Dean says that's what happened,

because I totally don't remember it, but...

that sounds like what Dean would do

if I were to tell him to put his cigarette out.

My first impression was, you know, this guy's got it all.

He's got the look, he sings great,

and he's a good guy.

And that was important to me.

A real cowboy.

And I wanted to be a cowboy.

I was around 'em both and I seen it,

and it's really kinda... They're the same person, sort of.

It's kinda really, I don't know, there's a lot

of similarity there, it's really wild.

And so they're like two brothers.

And especially when they hand a guitar over

when they're like jabbing at each other, you know what I mean?

I seen that firsthand a couple of times and I was like, wow.

I totally thought he was gonna be an artist.

Because I always loved Dean's singing.

His soulful voice just is... Whenever he would

pitch me a song, I would always want him doing the vocals

on the demo.

♪ Once I get there

♪ I'll drop anchor

♪ Toast the one who broke my heart ♪

♪ I'd like to thank her

♪ C'est la vie

♪ Come what may

♪ I probably would've blown it anyway ♪

♪ Life goes on

♪ I will, too and then my sin

♪ Take me to somebody else

♪ God made boats like this for guys like me ♪

♪ So c'est la vie

I'm in the studio putting down vocals on "The Chair."

And I look around and Hank's gone.

And I ask the engineer, I say, where is he?

And he said, well, I think he's back over

in this room writing a song with Royce Porter.

The guy who had written "Homecoming 63" with.

And I said, well, not on my darned session,

without me, they're not.

So I go over there and open the door

and Hank's like a kid with his hand caught

in a cookie jar and he goes,

Dean, listen to this idea we've got.

And they played me a little bit of it,

and he said, what do you think?

And I said, man, that's horrible.

I said, y'all can't be serious.

And he goes, yeah.

You want in on it or not?

And I knew better.

♪ If you leave me

♪ I'm won't miss you

♪ And I won't ever take you back ♪

♪ Girl, your memory

♪ Won't ever haunt me

♪ 'Cause I don't love you

♪ Now, if you'll buy that

♪ I got some oceanfront property in Arizona ♪

♪ From my front porch you can see the sea ♪

♪ I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona ♪

♪ If you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free ♪

So get done with that song

and he goes, well, now what do you think about it?

I said, I hate it.

And he goes, well, why?

I said I don't want people to think I'm a funny songwriter.

Life ain't funny to me.

And I didn't. I didn't wanna be known

as a funny songwriter and the other thing

that bothered me-the hell outta me 'bout that song

was every time we'd get...

♪ If you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free ♪

Every time we'd get to that point,

Royce was singing it, and he'd go,

♪ If you'll buy that I'll throw ♪

♪ The Golden Gate Bridge in free ♪

And it would run all over me.

Every time.

♪ If you'll buy that I'll throw ♪

♪ The Golden Gate Bridge in free ♪

And I said Royce, listen, if they don't know

what the Golden Gate is, they ain't gonna get

this damned song anyway.

And the other thing is, it's outta meter.

So you're gonna have all these dancers

colliding into one another.

It's doomed.

So I finally convinced him,

♪ If you'll buy that I'll throw the Golden Gate in free ♪

So the funny thing about that song was,

as bad as I hated it...

it came in the charts at number one

and sold a million records the first week it was out.

And where was Deano when that song came out?

Boat?

Nope.

In a bar.

I had enlisted myself at the Betty Ford Center

in Rancho Mirage, California.

And I did so good, I liked it so much

I went back four times.

I just finished my new album

and it happened to be right around

the same time that George was looking to cut his new album.

And so he calls me up and says, meet me in my office,

and I did, Monday morning, 10 o'clock

of the week he recorded, I was always in front

of George Strait playing songs for him.

'Cause every time that man would cut,

it'd be like, well, I said, it was like Elvis come to town.

It was like Presley came to town to cut a record, man.

I mean, this town would fucking buzz, man, for weeks.

Well, he's got 'em hold... Publishers were calling each other,

songwriters calling each other.

Strait's coming in town.

When we would find out the dates that Strait

was going to record, at Acuff Rose we would take shifts

standing at our window,

which overlooked Herb Woolsey's office,

and when we would see the limo pull in the gate,

and George and Norma would get out,

we would run into the rest of the building

and go, Strait's here, they've arrived,

they're in town.

And this time around, I played him about 20 songs

and he didn't like anything.

Dean had written so many great songs for George,

and George had had so much success,

and there was a little point in there,

and I was still playing in bars and trying to find my way,

and it was a little point in there

where George was still having number one hits,

but they didn't have that thing that I'd,

in the writing of it, the song was different.

It had changed highways.

It'd gone off on the shoulder.

And they weren't those Dean Dillon songs.

I said, oh, well, maybe next time, Boss.

And I'm walking out the door, and he goes, hey, Dean,

you've got a song that I've heard about.

It's a song called, "Easy Come, Easy Go."

And I said, yeah, man, that's my first single

off my new album.

And so then I heard that he'd cut it on his record,

he was recording, too, and I said, man, Dean,

I really want that song.

He said, if you'll let me have that song,

I promise you a number one record.

And in my mind, I'm thinking, let's see,

last year I spent $30,000 of my own money,

my songwriting money propping up this recording...

singer aspiration, and it garnered me nothing.

And by that time, we'd had some big records together.

Marina Del Rey, and Nobody In His Right Mind,

and I did the math in my head, and you know,

number one record's a half million bucks.

So I didn't hear from him for awhile,

and then I don't know, a few days, or weeks later

he said, you know what, man, you know how he talks, I'm gonna give you that song.

I know right where I was, I was in Oklahoma City

on Interstate 240 between Western and Walker,

and my wife had to go to Kinkos.

And she went in to get something in Kinkos

and I was sitting in the car,

and this George Strait song come on

and the second it was done she got in the car

and she got to hear the last chorus of the song.

I said, you hear this George Strait song?

She goes, yeah.

I go, it's incredible.

It was "Easy Come, Easy Go."

And I said I guarantee you,

I guarantee Dean Dillon wrote that song.

Walked right down the street to Atlantic,

walk in to the office there and tell Rick Blackburn,

I said, I've got some good news and some bad news.

And he goes, well, what's the good news?

I said, "Easy Come, Easy Go" is gonna be the next single.

And he said, well, then, what's the bad news?

I said, it's on George Strait.

I said, stick a fork in me, I'm done.

And he goes, well, what do you mean?

I said, I don't wanna make records anymore,

I just wanna write songs from here on out.

He said, you know, I don't... This recording thing,

I just, it's not doing it for me,

so I don't know, I think things work out

for a reason, and whether or not it would've been a hit

for Dean, who knows?

Fortunately, I got that song, I think it was a number one

record, I'm not sure, but I know it was a hit record.

♪ Says she's had enough of me

♪ I've had enough of her too

♪ I might as well go on and set her free ♪

♪ She's already turned me loose ♪

♪ No fault, no blame, nobody done no wrong ♪

♪ That's just the way it sometimes goes ♪

♪ Sometimes two people just don't get along ♪

♪ It's time to hit the road

♪ Goodbye

♪ Farewell

♪ So long

♪ Vaya con Dios, good luck,

♪ Wish you well, take it slow

♪ Easy come, girl, easy go

We did that for 35 years.

Every once in awhile, he and I and his son Bubba

get together and we write songs together,

and that's awesome.

It's easy when you've got the king of country music

sitting there and you're writing with him,

'cause you know what he's thinking,

and what he likes and doesn't like,

and it just makes my job really easy.

To get him together with my son, especially,

who really, really is trying to learn

to be a good songwriter, you know, to get somebody

like Dean to help him and teach him and show him things,

and stuff, you know, it's pretty special.

And I get this phone call one day,

and it goes something like this.

Hey, Dean, Bubba and I have been down here

kicking some songs around

and we was just kinda wondering if you'd

come down here and help us out.

And I went, duh.

You know, "Here for a Good Time" was Bubba's idea.

♪ Every day I wake up

♪ Knowing it could be my last

♪ I ain't here for a long time

♪ I'm here for a good time

You can't-you just can't trade that for anything.

Just pretty special for about old Dean.

♪ Pour me some moonshine.

I had been a fan of his. I know sometimes that he said

he was a fan of mine. What I guess he doesn't know

is that I was a fan of his.

He calls me and says, hey, we should write a song together,

and I said, yeah, sure, which I don't know, I'm too

nervous or insecure to say,

oh, yeah, let's hang out. I go, yeah, sure, you know,

thinking that that would never happen.

So then he calls me back another time

and he says, listen, I'm gonna come down to Houston

and see your show at the Houston Rodeo

and I'd like to hang out with you a couple days

and write songs.

I said, uh, oh, okay, uh. You know?

We started talking about "This West Texas Town,"

as I recall, and we kinda banged around on that

and then Dean, as he will,

it's just like boom, he goes, okay,

let's go, you know where some antique stores are.

I said, yeah, sure, so we got in the car

and we drove, just saw the countryside

and talked to these people, in these antique stores,

it was they, it totally cracked me up.

We wrote the song called, "West Texas Town,"

that Dean and George Strait did as a duet

on George Strait's Troubadour record,

which was, as far as I understand is only,

George's only Grammy winning record

that he ever had, so it was like, bingo.

And it was... You know, when I was writing,

I don't really think about anything happening

for the song.

I try to think in terms of making

the best song that you can,

and really making sense.

And you know, when that happened, it was almost like

unreal, like a dream, you know?

♪ My little dish in that panhandle ♪

♪ Lights up like a Roman Candle ♪

♪ When I reach that West Texas town ♪

Dean was like, what other towns

are in Texas? And I was like, what, you mean

around like Amarillo?

And he goes, yeah. I was like, well, there's Lubbock

and there's Idalou, and there's Plainview,

and there's Big Spring, and he goes,

you know, then he goes, in that Dean kinda way,

all right, so Big Spring up to all the way to Plainview,

and I was like, okay, that works,

I don't know how you have that map in your head,

but that's exactly how you would go.

♪ Ah, sing it Dean

♪ From Big Spring all the way to Plainview ♪

♪ I can't wait to get to you know who ♪

♪ In that West Texas town

♪ I drive through hell and half of Texas ♪

♪ Just to get to her by breakfast ♪

♪ Waiting in the West Texas town ♪

♪ I'm on my way to Amarillo

♪ I can't seem to get my fill of that ♪

♪ Little West Texas Town

♪ I've got a sweet thing built, right Betty ♪

♪ Head to toe, she's mighty pretty ♪

♪ Living in that West Texas town ♪

And then I can't do this.

♪ Friday comes, it's time to roll ♪

♪ Time for me to hit the road

♪ I've got my eyes on the horizon ♪

♪ My little dish in that pas...

♪ My little dish in that panhandle ♪

♪ Lights up like a Roman Candle ♪

♪ When I reach that West Texas town ♪

That's it.

♪ Baby, turn the porch light on ♪

♪ Your sweet Daddy's coming home ♪

♪ To that West Texas town

Ta-da.

There we go, that wasn't too bad.

There you go.

The caveat there was Dean had never sung with George,

and George had cut so many of Dean's songs,

and so they did this duet on this song,

so that was really proud moment for me,

and it was, I think it was a really proud moment for Dean.

♪ If I'm gonna self-destruct

♪ I'm gonna go for bust

♪ Do it right

♪ Just as right as wrong can do ♪

♪ So just let me go to hell

♪ The way I want to

♪ Ain't no half way on this one way ♪

♪ I've already sealed my fate

♪ The devil knows my name

♪ You can't save me from the flames ♪

♪ It's too late

♪ Too late

I remember coming home from the office

and I'd just had a number one record.

I had three babies under the age of five

and there was all this turmoil

constantly when I came home, you know,

and I walked in my house that day

and she went off and I went in my office

and sat there for a minute

and looked at my desk and took my arm

and raked it clean.

She came in there and I said I'll never live

another night in this house.

And I didn't.

A lot of the demons that had chased him

in his early years of coming to town

were sort of pushed to the sideline

and when he went through his first divorce

and with children involved, it- he reverted back

to some of those things that had brought him relief

and helped him escape.

Gary tried to call me the day he committed suicide.

And I'd taken those calls a million times,

and that's the one I didn't take, but Dean was,

Dean was still... Dean was probably headed down the same path.

I mean, not suicide, but Dean was having trouble,

you know, handling his day to day,

and we were... I can say that

because I was through it with him,

I was right there when it happened.

And that had... Well, I'll tell you how bad it hurt,

it hurt bad enough that it put me in

Parthenon Pavilion Home with a nervous breakdown.

Dean's love for his children is unsurpassed.

He has a deep, deep love for his kids.

I became this every other weekend dad.

He had blacked out and I said, so, Dean,

if you know there's this edge that you're about to go over

with one more drink, why do you have that one drink

that's sort of the tipping point?

He said because for a little while the pain goes away.

But you move on, you know, you do what you gotta do.

He dealt with it in the only way

that he really knew how to deal with it.

At that time, moment in time in my life,

if I, I had a bad drug and alcohol problem and I knew it.

And I knew if I didn't do something about it,

it was gonna kill me.

I don't think he found pleasure

necessarily in those things

I think that they were a relief mechanism.

He finally come up one day and he said,

man, I love you, and I'm sorry if I was ever

an asshole to you, and I said, well, dude,

I mean, you know, I pick out who the assholes are.

You know, I've been very blessed and very fortunate

to have people in my life that cared enough

to give me a second chance.

But you gotta know I got past it,

and I'm not that guy today,

and I don't ever wanna be that guy again.

You know, Dean and I have a lot in common.

You know, we have... We actually have the same birthday,

Dean and I do, March 26th.

So that's really, that was really odd.

Dean was definitely someone that showed me

that you could come from a small town

and achieve big things, and Dean was definitely

someone that I looked up to.

We had similar life experiences that led us

down this path.

And that was a big part of my connection

and it still is a big part of my connection

with Dean Dillon.

Troy Tomlinson comes in and says,

hey, man, would you, man, would you mind

writing with this kid named Kenny Chesney?

He goes, he's been dying to write with you,

but I told him no, he ain't up to your level yet.

I was very scared to write with Dean the first time.

I was brand new, outta East Tennessee,

and Dean was writing at Acuff Rose Music,

and by that time that I got signed at Acuff Rose,

Dean was a songwriting icon in this town.

I knew that Kenny loved Dean,

so one day Dean was in the office,

and I'm like, hey, we got this Kenny Chesney kid,

man, I think it's gonna work.

Well, of course I'll write with him,

man, he's an East Tennessee boy, he's a brother.

So I played him this song called "The Tin Man"

that Kenny had written.

He listened all the way through it very patiently,

as Dean can do when he wants to

and at the end of it he said,

I believe I'll write with that boy.

We played him a song "The Tin Man,"

and he wants to write with you.

And I went, oh, I remember driving in,

I had a little apartment out in Mount Julia,

Tennessee, and I was driving into town,

scared to death.

Kenny comes in, he's got his guitar, man,

he's torn all to pieces, he's gonna write

with the Dean Dillon.

And I was beating around on the guitar like that,

but when I walked in the room, Dean didn't even really

look at me, he was staring out the window,

he was smoking a cigarette.

Even though it was a non-smoking building,

he was smoking a cigarette, looking out the window,

and Kenny's talking about ideas.

You know, I just know we're gonna write

something great today.

And he was rubbing his chin like this, you know,

and you could tell he was deep

into thought on something.

And I turned around and I do this yawn.

He goes, Chesney, hang on a minute.

He goes, you're gonna have to give me time

to get down on your level.

And man, he looks at me and that jaw drops

and I bust out laughing.

It was awesome.

I mean, for Kenny, I can't imagine how he felt

at the moment, but it was honestly the very beginning

of what has become this brotherly relationship

between the two of them.

Song, one song of Dean's that we had a big hit on

with Kenny was called "A Lot of Things Different."

♪ I'd have spent a lot more time ♪

♪ In the pouring rain without an umbrella ♪

♪ Covering my head

♪ And I'd stood up to that bully ♪

♪ When he pushed and called me names ♪

♪ But I was too afraid

Buddy Cann is my record producer, and he's a great

songwriter himself, and he has really great songs since,

so when Buddy sends me a song,

he rarely sells it, you know.

He doesn't say, you've really gotta hear this.

He just sends it to me just to see

what I think and feel about it when I listen to it.

But on "A Lot of Things Different," Buddy goes,

you really need to sit down and listen to this.

It's gonna take a minute to get through it,

but this is just classic Dean Dillon.

♪ Oh I, I'd done a lot of things different ♪

♪ I wish I'd a spent more time on my dad ♪

♪ When he was alive

♪ Now I don't have the chance

♪ And I wish I'd a told my brother ♪

♪ How much I loved him

♪ Before he went off to war

♪ But I just shook his hand

They pitched that song to Tim McGraw.

McGraw put it on hold and ended up

not recording it, and Kenny heard the song

and he wanted to cut it, so we cut it

and it became one of the biggest things we had.

I went and saw Bruce Springsteen in Orlando

at the arena there, and I was talking to Bruce

in catering and he goes, that song of yours

"A Lot of Things Different," he goes,

I absolutely love that song.

He goes, did you write it?

And I said, no, but one of my best friends in the world did.

And his name's Dean Dillon.

And you could just tell that Bruce

was thinking about that composition

and how it was put together,

and he told me how much he really loved that song,

and I called Dean first thing, I said,

Dean, you're never gonna believe

who just told me they love "A Lot of Things Different."

♪ On and on, oh I

♪ I'd done a lot of things different ♪

Dean and I wrote a lot of songs together after that.

And I was going through one of the worst periods

so far in my life.

There's a thing in Nashville

amongst songwriters is we always try

to get the guy going through the divorce

'cause he's got some good stuff to write about.

And that's what we do and it's kinda funny,

kinda sad in a way, but it's the truth.

You know, that heart's wide open,

bleeding like a sucker, man, and you know,

you can get some great songs outta guys

when they're going through an emotional roller coaster.

I was on my boat in the Virgin Islands a lot

and I wrote a bunch of songs on that boat.

Some that I finished and threw in the ocean.

But Dean came down and we wrote, got the guitar,

messed around, we wrote a song called, "I'm Alive,"

right there that morning, setting on my boat

and Willie Nelson cut and I recorded on my Lucky Old Sun

record, ended up being a duet with Dave Matthews.

♪ Today's the first day of the rest of my life ♪

♪ And I'm alive

♪ And well, I'm alive and well

♪ The stars are dancin' on the water here tonight ♪

♪ It's good for the soul when there's not a soul in sight ♪

♪ This boat has caught its wind and brought me back to life ♪

♪ Now I'm alive and well

The other night I was honored at the BMI Awards

with the president's award, and Dean got up there

with his guitar and had his sunglasses on

and sat down like he does, you know,

and spoke about our friendship and sang that song

in front of me, and it's hard, it is really hard

to rattle my cage now, I mean,

emotionally in public.

But Dean started singing that song

and he got through the first verse and the chorus

and he literally disarmed me.

♪ It's times like these

♪ I wish I were a tin man

♪ You could hurt me all you wanted ♪

♪ And I'd never even know

♪ I'd give anything

♪ Oh, just to be a tin man

♪ And I wouldn't have a problem ♪

♪ And I wouldn't need a soul

I mean, I just lost everything.

So there I am with my girlfriend,

my family, my mother and a lot of people

around these tables that meant a lot to me

in my life and know how much this moment means to me,

the fact that Dean Dillon one of my oldest songwriting

pals ever is singing this song for me.

It was a very emotional moment.

♪ ...miss you so

Love you, brother.

Dean's probably my favorite writer.

And he deserves every bit of accolades he ever gets

and he hasn't got the ones he deserves yet,

but we're working on it.

Toby and Scotty hook up and are writing

all these monstrous records for Toby,

"Whiskey for My Men, Beer For My Horses,"

"I Love This Bar," all that Toby Keith stuff,

Scotty's sitting right there with Toby writing his stuff.

♪ We'll raise up our glasses against evil forces ♪

♪ Singing "Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses" ♪

Dean is one of my best friends in the world

and I'm very fortunate to have a good friend like him

and he feels the same way about me,

I've heard him say, but I like being around talented people

and feeding off that, and he's definitely, probably

the most talented I've ever been around.

Scotty said I always wanna get you two together.

You're my two favorites to write with,

and I always wanted to get you two

in the same room.

We started having some success together,

the three of us, and I owe that all to Scotty Emerick, man.

And then you know, like I said, I found out

what kinda guy Toby is, and just a great,

again, Toby sets himself apart from everybody else.

Toby was always a Dean Dillon fan

and I wanted to bring Dean out

and meet Toby and us write a song together.

Me and him and Scotty got the best room

we could find in Albuquerque,

and it was the best room we could find.

And we holed up for three days and ate green chili...

enchiladas, me and Scotty had a couple Coronas,

Dean stayed straight and we wrote about six songs.

We wrote "It's a Little Too Late," number one.

♪ It's a little too late

♪ I'm a little too gone

♪ Little too tired of this hanging on ♪

♪ So I'm letting you go

♪ while I'm still strong enough to ♪

And from that point forward, it happened quite often

and it became a friendship.

And he's written some just monstrous records,

you know, and then on top of that, he's overseas

touring during the Afghanistan wars and going to play

for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

and wherever the hell those generals want him to

go over there and play, and just doing a great

job of it over there, you know, supporting

our troops, playing for our troops.

I wanna salute the families of the boys and girls

that are proud enough to wear my country's uniform.

They're also present tonight.

Thank you for your sacrifice.

I took him, Bobby Penson, and Scotty and three

or four other writers down to my house

for writer's retreat in Cabo.

And we wrote about 20 songs and me and Dean and Bobby

wrote the latest single I have,

which is "A Few More Cowboys."

Now, I don't know if they'll still play

a country song on the radio anymore,

but what we need I think we got it, but what we need

is a few more cowboys. Figure this shit out.

♪ If the White House was in Texas, man ♪

♪ We'd get a straighter answer

♪ If they'd let us smoke what we want ♪

♪ We'd have a lot less cancer

♪ There'd be much more daddies

♪ Sons could be proud of

♪ We'd have half the crime

♪ We'd have twice the fun

♪ With a few more cowboys

♪ Be a lot less outlaws

♪ With a few more amens

♪ Be a lot less bad calls

♪ With a few more yes ma'ams

♪ And a lot less yes men

♪ This world would be a better place to live in ♪

♪ With a few more cowboys

The president of the label I'm at right now

told my manager the other day, he goes,

I don't know if they'll still play country on the radio

but this song Toby, Dean, and Bobby wrote

is as good as Toby can do.

He goes, if this song would've been in his wheelhouse

of 22 year career, when there was a period of time,

a four and a half year, four year period of time

we spent 51 weeks at number one on Billboard.

I had a single, 51 weeks in four year period of time,

it's about a quarter of the time

we're sitting number one, and we were

writing 'em and spitting 'em out.

"Beer and My Horses," "I Love This Bar,"

"America's Soldier," "Good As I Once Was,"

Just every time we come out,

this would've been one of those songs.

And you know, Mike Dungin was like,

this is like "Beer For My Horses."

It was a six week number one and this one

struggles on the charts you know, because

they just don't play it no more,

and I'm not gonna be one of those guys

that sit around and say that the young guys

that they're not playing country anymore,

it's what it is.

♪ And it's about high time

♪ We looked 'em in the eye

♪ Get our head out of the sand

♪ Hit 'em with a big John Wayne ♪

♪ By God they'd understand

♪ With a few more cowboys

♪ Be a lot less outlaws

♪ With a few more amens

♪ Be a lot less bad calls

♪ With a few more yes ma'ams

♪ And a lot less yes men

♪ This world would be a better place to live in ♪

♪ With a few more cowboys

Over the last 30 plus years,

I've watched a lot of ebb and flow

in the music business.

We're in a season now, and we've been in a season

where the music's changed pretty dramatically again.

Lyrical output, if you will, is a more,

I'll say, kind of, college fun type lyric

and some refer to it as bro country.

I mean, let the kids rock, man.

That's, if that's what Nashville wants to sell,

that's what the industry wants to sell,

let 'em sell it, it's cool,

let 'em go do their thing,

make their money, we still get to come out here at night,

play to sold out concerts, those songs'll never go away.

We got under the tent just in time

and when our circus was going on, we were killing it.

We were the elephants and the trapeze artist and the lion.

We owned it.

And let these guys own what they own,

but we're not gonna switch to hip hop.

And if they're wanna do, if everything's gotta be hip hop,

and bro country, or whatever they call it,

let 'em be, man, but me and Dean and Scotty

and Bobby Penson, you know, all my old guys,

we're all gonna be sitting around still trying to write

that one country song that everybody has to listen to,

so, and that's our challenge now,

and we accomplished everything else.

A couple years ago, man, I had to come back

out on the road again.

Here I sit, you know?

Two years removed from being able to concentrate

solely on writing songs, I'm back out here

on the road playing clubs and bars, anywhere they'll

you know, pay for me to play.

He's right, and if I cut the best song in the world

right now, I don't think the radio'll play it, either.

So I see where he's coming from.

You know, and I always said to myself

I'm not gonna be mad when that happens to me,

because I saw it happen to Merle,

I saw it happen to George, and other artists, you know,

the radio just quit playing 'em.

I was going, what the hell, where's Merle's records

this month or this year or what?

I still wanted to hear 'em.

And so that's the kinda thing that happened

to me as well.

One thing that is for sure.

Great song... Artists come and go, phases come and go,

but great songs that touch people never go out of style.

I'm very proud that guys like Dean Dillon still

write songs, because I'm still the kinda guy

that wants to record those songs.

Here's the thing about Dean Dillon.

He still wants to make music and he still wants

to make music that other people can hear and enjoy.

So there will always be, always, a spot

for Dean Dillon whether it's a song that he wrote

30 years ago that gets re-recorded or whether it's a song

that he writes this morning, there will always be a space

a place, for Dean Dillon.

The Nashville sound meets the soul of Memphis.

Get your feet, Nashville, for it's Chris Stapleton

and it's Justin Timberlake.

♪ Used to spend my nights out in a barroom ♪

♪ Liquor was the only love I've known ♪

♪ But you rescued me from reachin' for the bottom ♪

I'd had this idea for a long time

called "Tennessee Whiskey."

♪ ...being too far gone

You're as smooth as Tennessee Whiskey.

♪ You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey ♪

You're as sweet as strawberry wine.

♪ You're as sweet as strawberry wine ♪

You're as warm as a glass of brandy.

♪ You're as warm as a glass of brandy ♪

And I stay stoned on your love all the time.

♪ And I stay stoned on your love all the time ♪

A little "Tennessee Whiskey" I'd like to sing for you this evening.

Hell of a song.

Well, he wrote it.

I think the first person I pitched "Tennessee Whiskey"

to was this guy.

It was, and I turned it down.

I made it priority that anything I thought

was any good that he heard it first.

The first time I heard George do it,

I thought, wow, that's a great song,

I might've screwed up there.

I would've bet the farm, so to speak,

that he would cut that song, and he heard it

and he goes, I think I'll pass.

♪ And you're as smooth as Tennessee Whiskey ♪

That was a dream come true, because to me

the big four were George Jones, Merle Haggard,

Johnny Cash, and Loretta Lynn

and if you could get a cut on those four,

man, you'd won the lottery.

That song's been recorded by how many people now?

And then this crazy guy comes on the scene

in country music and his name's David Allen Coe.

Motherfucker, open the gate!

Brad Paisley cut that song and put it on an album.

And then a guy called Chris Stapleton gets a call

from Justin Timberlake.

♪ Nothing like your love to get me high ♪

Climbs to number one on iTunes,

he sells a million records.

♪ Tennessee Whiskey

♪ You're as sweet as strawberry wine ♪

♪ And you're as warm as a glass ♪

My wife loved the paycheck.

♪ And I stay stoned on your love all time ♪

It was a hell of a song, Dean.

Good song.

My bad.

So anyway, here's another song that Dean wrote

that I was fortunate enough to cut, so...

Beautiful song.

♪ I burn with desire each time my heart fans the fire ♪

♪ To that old flame that burns inside of me. ♪

♪ Nobody in his right mind would've left her ♪

♪ Even my heart was smart enough to stay behind ♪

Dean, everybody in here knows how special our relationship

has been throughout the years, and I wanna thank you

for that and thank you for being a friend to me

and sending me songs when nobody knew who I was or nothing

and you took a chance sending your songs out there with me

and I really appreciate that.

♪ Each night finds me dreamin'

I live, eat, sleep, and breathe songs.

It's all I've ever done.

It's all I ever loved.

♪ ...she was still around

And in the immortal words of Hank Cochran,

isn't this wonderful?

♪ Still around

Dean Dillon.

♪ Flowed through my veins

♪ Since I was born

♪ Turns you cold

♪ Keeps you warm

♪ There's no escape, it won't leave you alone ♪

♪ When you're a song

♪ You're so blessed

♪ Yet so cursed

♪ 'Cause every breath

♪ Is another verse

♪ You hurt like hell, the whole world sings along ♪

♪ When you're a song