Song-by-Song

1. "Take Me Home with You" (Jim McCormick)

"Kim Carson heard me playing it in its infancy a couple of years ago and asked if she could get a copy of it. I gave her a guitar vocal recording the next week. Little did I know it would become one of the standout tracks on her 1998 record Tonkabilly."

2. "Dream Farm" (Jim McCormick)

"Another gift, so to speak. The song seemed to have been written already when I started to transcribe what was in my head. I'd let go of a great girl who I knew was going to make somebody real happy one day. It just wasn't my time to stay put. While recording, Bill and Skeet snuck in one weekend and laid down the background harmonies, which blew me away when I came back on Monday."

3. "Angels that Never Went Back" (Jim McCormick)

"Dennis Johnson is a superb contemporary American poet and novelist. I had read his books of poetry over the years and checked one of his novels, called Angels, out of the library to read. Never did. But the book sat on my coffee table for weeks, and its cover inspired me to write a song about a couple of old friends and myself. Anders Osborne's guitar work on this recording is astounding."

4. "Love Will See You Through" (Jimbeau Hinson/Jim McCormick)

"I've been a fan of Jimbeau Hinson's work for a long time, especially 'Hillbilly Highway' and 'Train of Memories.' We met in Nashville via the Nashville Songwriters Association International--a great organization--and he asked to hear a couple of my songs. I had the whole melody and the first verse, and we wrote the rest that afternoon in one of NSAI's writing rooms."

5. "Single Again" (Bill Berry/Jim McCormick)

"She was pretty, smart, everything...and she dumped me on my head. Thanks to Bill Berry for helping me through the therapy of writing this one--the cheapest psychiatrist in the world says Billy Joe Shaver. Tommy Malone started messing with that Homer and Jethro guitar line and Mike and I loved it."

6. "Long Mad Way" (Anders Osborne/Jim McCormick)

"Perhaps the first song written for this record. Anders and I sat around his kitchen table on a rainy afternoon in New Orleans. I had the first part of the lyric, which I'd written lying down in the back of my old rock band's van traveling across Texas, and Anders found a beautiful melody for it. While recording, the song seemed to rise up out of the ground like a mist, a great vibe in the studio. Theresa Anderson's violin captured the song's essence."

7. "Call Me" (Bill Berry/Jim McCormick)

"I put myself in the shoes of a girl who had left me for an old friend of hers and told Bill about the idea I had. I wanted a positive song about finally fulfilling those unrequited longings, not another "woe-is-me" tune. We knew it should be a duet from the start and had a great time writing it. Susan Cowsill has one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard, so I was honored she agreed to sing it with me."

8. "Grand Old Way" (Jim McCormick)

"This and "One of Those Seasons" came out of me the same day. I wrote them both in an old wooden warehouse where I used to practice. Mike knew he wanted to hear the guitars up on this one, Fred LeBlanc was the appropriate choice for background vocals, and John Gros' organ playing lifts the whole thing. It's the record's rocker."

9. "A Man Movin' On" (Jim McCormick)

"I was listening to a lot of Randy Travis and Alan Jackson when I wrote this. I love both men's voices, as well as a lot of their production styles. In the studio Ray Ganucheau came up with a chord change or two that really solidified the piece. We left a lot of room around the voice and tried to leave the instrumentation pretty spare."

10. "Weave Your Flame with Mine" (Jim McCormick)

"I carried this title and melody around for a year until it came time to record. I'd perform it out all the time, making up different lyrics each time. With the sessions approaching, I forced myself to write for two straight hours every evening after my day-job, as well as jot down anything that would come to me at other times. It's a good example of ten percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration."

11. "Have a Drink on Me" (Bill Berry/Jim McCormick)

"Bill was messing with the guitar riff when I arrived for a writing appointment with him at his girlfriend's apartment. We laughed the whole time we were writing and probably finished the bulk of it in a couple of hours. I wanted a bar song on the record, and this one always did well with live audiences. More than anything else, Mike Barras brings it to life with his drumming."

12. "One of Those Seasons" (Jim McCormick)

"I had the image of a heartbroken but loving scenario being played out in some rural district of my mind. No verse, no chorus, just story. Some of the most sympathetic playing you could ever ask for is on this recording, namely John Thomas Griffith's pedal steel and Mark Whitaker's drumming."