This probably has no legs now, but some of you wanted the story behind Where Can I Surrender, the song Randy Travis cut. It started in Austin at Willies studio. Amy Clay was cutting some master demos and wanted to cut a couple of my songs. The producer called, so I went. Not being unusual for folks to stop by when the studio is active, Coach Royal and Mickey Newbury looked in. It was a 3-4 day thing, I cant remember, but one evening, Amy came in and gave me this song idea she had. It was, Where do I go to surrender, Im tired of being free. I noted it down. This was 1985. In 1989. I had to go to jail for growing pot. I made trusty and wound up with a private cell (so called). I was the permanent KP(mopped, scrubbed, washed, peeled, etc.). After a couple of weeks, the sheriff let me have my guitar...hadnt written anything in years. Long story short, I wrote eleven songs. Where, was one of em. Note the allusion to crime terms in the lyric...breaking and entering, unlawful flight, etc. In 1992 I demoed it and called Amy to tell her I finally got around to her song idea. She wanted to know WHAT song idea? I told her and she said it wasnt her idea, it was Mickey Newburys. DA@#$%^&* was my thought. So, had to find Newbury to tell him, and as luck would have it, he was in Nashville. Darrel Roberts went with me to meet Mickey and we caught him at the old Pancake Pantry having breakfast with Floyd Cramer. He listened to my cut, and I told him the theft was unintentional; would he agree to be 50/50 writer with me? I remember what and how he said it to this day,Nah, Pod, Ive already written that and yours is better than mine. Its your song. How Newburyish! What a great guy! So, I pitched it every year to Randy Travis, who finally heard it in 1999. Dreamworks liked well enough to release it as a single (one of the few Ive had). It popped and fizzled but it was a fine cut, and one of which Im proud. There you have it.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 20:48:28 +0000
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