Okay, so this is the point where I start to rewrite and re-record some of my old songs. I used to do that a lot. Like, every week I’d redo a song from the previous year. And then I stopped doing that for a while. So I’ve got a TON of songs to go back and work over. First one up is That Long and Lonesome Road.

Check out the original, I basically got rid of the entire song except for the repeating line, “that long and lonesome road.” Then, I set it to the tune of “The Ballad of John Henry.” Now, I’ve always stayed away from all the John Henry tunes that are out there. I love them and I play them for myself, but never attempted to rework one for myself. This is that attempt.

Parts of it are a little too “working-man-against-the-world” and I’m not totally sold on the “swim across the deep blue sea” part that implies the negative impacts of overseas OUTSOURCING of which I don’t know a whole lot about. Otherwise, though, I kind of like this one.

For the longest time I got away from using old melodies and tunes to write my own new songs. That’s how I started writing because it came most natural. Yes, STEALING comes natural to me. I think I’m most successful when I’ve got a little something from someone else to stand on, though, because this new version is far superior than the first one. The original is just a vague blanket of a song. It’s not about anything, so it could be about anything. Who wants to hear something like that? Not me.

This’ll be the first of many rewrites to come. Stay tuned for more.