When The Goin’ Gets Tough, was co-written with Moriah Domby. We wrote it over a lunch break at work one day. I recently recorded it at Strawdog Studio and hope to get it on a pitch list soon. I think it’s a timely message for a trying time.

If I Were Yours is a song I wrote at work one day. Our receptionist was a little down because it was her birthday and she hadn’t heard from her boyfriend and it was almost lunchtime. I kind of took the story from his perspective-if he had not come through as he did that afternoon. Sometimes you get it right the first time and sometimes you don’t know what you would have done until you don’t have the opportunity to do it anymore.

Lookin’ Back is a song about accepting the grace of God and self forgiveness. I wrote this song a couple years ago and performed it at church. I’m glad I finally got it recorded.

I think many times we say the words and go through the motions as Christians, but we don’t really believe we are forgiven. We recall what’s happened in our past and it’s as though we live the sin all over again. God knows better and has removed our sin from us. We need to walk boldly in that faith and know we are forgiven and know we are going to heaven.

Be Still was written during a sermon at church and later performed at a church service with “Grass Clippin’s”, a bluegrass gospel band I played in for a while. This version is just me and my guitar in the studio for demonstration purposes.

The White House called the Country Music Hall of Fame and asked them to put on an educational program on Country Music at the White House. The folks at the Hall of Fame asked Sal and I to do a repeat performance of the song we did for the big show at the end of the school year. That’s what was captured in the video. A very cool day to say the least.

To Catch A Glimpse Of Her is the latest song I’ve had published. Written with Pat Gallagher, this song is published by Air Deluxe Music (Bob Berg) and recorded by Dave Smith at his studio.

We’re still hoping for a major label cut on this one before the reversion clause kicks in.

The Old Dirt Road is a story about when they paved the road that I grew up on, but it’s also a statement about what we call progress. I wrote the song with Pat Gallagher.

This is another song from the Live RCA Studio B session.

Pat Gallagher and I were writing one Saturday morning. I started playing this real fast bluegrass tune singing, “I have been nothing but lonesome ever since I left my hometown.” Pat said, “whoa. Can’t write something like that this morning, but I like the Nothing but lonesome. Let’s work with that.” We slowed things way down and made a fine blues song out of it.

This song was recorded live at RCA Studio B with my band. We had the lights down low and got it in about two takes.

Stop The Rain was a song that I wrote one night after watching the news of the Missouri river flooding. I tried to put myself in the boots of the farmer whose life was being washed away. At around the same time, I had heard Ricky Skaggs singing a tribute to Bill Monroe at the Ryman.

I wrote this song on my own. It was born somewhat out of a challenge from a fellow writer who told me he always wanted to write a song with just two chords. All of the forces joined together to help inspire this song, which was always a crowd favorite when I played it out with Cow Pie Bingo.

You Show Me Yours (I’ll Show You Mine) written with Pat Gallagher. This is a playful take on what true love means. When you get past the superficial romantic love, it takes the things in this song to make love last. The influence of the Bakersfield Sound is all over this one. I twang, therefore, I am.

I wrote this song on my lunch break one day when I worked at the Country Music Hall of Fame. I had walked past the mural by Thomas Hart Benton every day for several years, but that day I noticed the smoke coming out of the train and sorta put all of the pictures in my head together on paper to tell the story of coal. I recorded this song live at RCA Studio B with my band, Cow Pie Bingo.

I wrote “The Things You Left Behind” with my friend and long-time co-writer, Pat Gallagher. It’s one of my favorites in the catalog. I’m singing on this demo with KK Falkner. I’ve always loved her voice. We think of this song as a duet, but it could be sung by one person just as well.

I wrote this song a few years back with Casey Beathard. We decided to try to write a song while the CMA Awards were going on. I think we were both a little distracted, but we managed to build a pretty good song here in spite of ourselves.