» Never Said a Word (about the War)

In January of 2004, I had just presented a New Years Workshop at the Clermont Inn in Batavia.  It was sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 PM and I was on I-275 North.  My son and I had recently had a connversation with my wife's uncle about his involvement as a Marine in the Pacific during WWII.  I was thinking about the fact that until that conversation, I had never heard him or my wife's father (Korea) talk about their experiences in wartime.

The phrase "He never said a word about the war" came to me, and I grew very excited.  I began singing the melody for the chorus at that point, and started recording ideas about the song on my cell phone's voice mail.  Unfortunately, I also began driving with my knees right about then - after all, I was the only one ono the highway that I could see.

Well, it turned out I wasn't  the only one on the highway.  There was also a policeman out there somewhere watching me, and I was suddenly startled by red and blue flashing lights.  The officer politely informed me that he had pulled me over for speeding in a construction zone (at that time, just about all of 275 was a construction zone) and weaving - changing lanes without using turn signals.

Was I guilty?  Oh yes.  I was writing a song!

No, I do not advocate any of those behaviors nor am I serious about justifying them because I was writing a song.  He was nice enough to fine me only for speeding, and took off the construction zone charge.  But I did want to note that so far, this song has left me about $150 in the hole.

I was determined to keep the song simple and direct, and I had been looking for a project to share with Chuck Pinney, one of the hardest-working up-and-coming songwriters in our Workshop.  Chuck is deeply patriotic, and I could not imagine anyone more appropriate as a cowriter for this song.

Chuck signed on, and then began what Chuck has described as a form of hell.  I was determined to hold back and let Chuck come up with the actual lines, because I tend to be too poetic.  However, I turned the whole experience into a private writing lesson for Chuck.  He claims he kept all the drafts he wrote, and that they look like a book.

But I am very happy with the way the song turned out, and I was even more excited by huge leap in Chuck's own songwriting craft from that point on.  (We did cowrite another song that we have not yet demoed called "A Woman Was Here"; we shelved it because it wasn't 'country', but I think it is wonderful and is ready to be demoed.)

By the way, this is one of the few times you'll hear me play and sing on my own demo.  On this song, it seems to work.

Both Chuck and I have experienced a lot of emotional encounters with the children of veterans when we have performed this song.  Obviously we struck a chord of truth.