God’s Country
I remember standing in the middle of our land in Tennessee, which is east of Nashville, way out in the sticks. It was a scorching hot day, over 100%. There were deer on the edge of the land where it meets the woods that run along the side of our land. It was so quiet and I just thought how beautiful it was there, truly God’s country.
Driving back into Nashville I thought about the land, and our plans for it, build a home on it, grow our own (which we already do), keep chickens, ducks, a goat, dogs, a horse – you can tell we’re big animal lovers. Anyway, as with most of my songs, the first verse just came to me, “I’m not afraid of dying, I hope I get to Heaven, but I’m not ready to go just yet.”
I don’t think of it as a religious song but God does feature on my life, in all our lives, whether you believe or not really. Religion is so contentious. I believe what I believe, that’s that.
I used to have a friend who was a born again Christian who once told me the local preacher would not get into Heaven because he hadn’t been born again – how ridiculous! This was a man who had tried every faith, was born Jewish, renounced that. I think in his way as an extreme Christian, he was as dangerous as any terrorist from another faith.
I grew up with many Jewish friends, (my father, a lawyer, worked with many Jewish lawyers). I’ve been to synagogues and although I am a Welsh Baptist, have always worn a Star of David, as well as a cross.
I think the answer is simple; respect of other people’s faith and what they believe, or what they don’t.
It Only Hurts Me When I Breathe
There’s a saying we use – “it hurts my heart.” We usually say it about our chocolate Labrador Hope who if she’s told off, will look at you with those brown eyes….. and your heart melts. The problem is she knows it!
I thought about this and then about the heartache of falling or being in love; when your heart beats faster or you’re out of breathe. I had the lyrics for the chorus and the music first, the title line came and then the rest of the lyrics followed.
I Don’t Work Without You
I was in Nashville by myself, and was thinking about how people miss other people, and how they can't function sometimes, they are missing them so much, simple as that! This song wrote itself really.
The Rodeo
We went to our first rodeo several years ago in Lebanon in Tennessee and loved it.
The whole lifestyle appealed to the gypsy in me – the circus or carnival, nomadic life, taking their show around the country, from town to town, state to state. As a kid I wanted to run away and join the travelling show.
The rodeo is also for me a major part of American culture and history. In one of my favourite small towns, Watertown, a few miles from our land, in a small antique store, I found this amazing book, Rodeo, by Thomas Grant Springer. There’s an inscription written inside, dated 1937.
I took the past and the present and put them in to this song. If you’re going to use anyone to see the national anthem to introduce the song and to try and create the atmosphere of a rodeo, it might as well be Kelly Clarkson!