Story by Hugh Prestwood
Song written by Hugh Prestwood
Recorded by Trisha Yearwood
I was an English major in college and a lot of poets influenced my lyric writing. I've loved poets like Frost, and Edwin A. Robinson, and Emily Dickinson. I got the idea for "The Song Remembers When" from a poem by Anne Sexton called "Music Swims Back to Me." There's a line in the poem where the narrator says, "The song remembers more than I."
Song written by Hugh Prestwood
Recorded by Trisha Yearwood
I was an English major in college and a lot of poets influenced my lyric writing. I've loved poets like Frost, and Edwin A. Robinson, and Emily Dickinson. I got the idea for "The Song Remembers When" from a poem by Anne Sexton called "Music Swims Back to Me." There's a line in the poem where the narrator says, "The song remembers more than I."
I had a couple of major heartbreaks in my life. I think everyone has had those relationships where you hear a song that triggers emotions and memories. The lines that read, "we were rolling through the Rockies, we were up above the clouds" -- that came from a real moment in time. My wife and I were driving through Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove from Estes Park, Colorado, and as we got higher, we were literally driving through the clouds and eventually we were above the clouds.
We were listening to the radio and I actually heard one of my songs, "Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart," performed by Randy Travis. So this was just an incredible moment, looking out over the mountains and then hearing one of my songs on the radio. The station was actually out of Denver, and I started to use Denver in the song, but we had also been to Jackson Hole, Wyoming on that trip and I decided Jackson sounded better.
The first verse, "I was standing at the counter, I was waiting for the change," was also based on an experience I had when I heard one of my songs for the first time. I was at a Shoney's restaurant and something that I had written came over the speakers. So I remembered that scene and thought, "I'll use that as the first verse." All of those scenes got jumbled around and ended up in this song, which was about a painful break-up.
We had a lot of trouble getting that song recorded. I was writing for BMG then and I went through a little bit of a depression because I thought that was as good a song as I would ever write and we could not get it cut. I actually had a couple of big producers who called me and asked me if I would consider re-writing it to make it more radio-friendly and more chorus-y. It doesn't really even have a chorus. But I just loved it the way it was and I didn't want to change it.
Then Kathy Mattea recorded it and I really very happy about it, until I found out it didn't make it on her record. That really sent me into a nosedive, with a lot of self-doubt. She told me later the label actually liked the song, but it didn't really match the flavor of the album.
We had pitched it to Trisha Yearwood for a previous album and that didn't happen either, but the second time around, she cut it. It later won the Nashville Songwriters Association Song of the Year, and even won an Emmy because Trisha did it in a TV special. Since then, it's almost become her signature song. When an artist gets identified with a song that closely, a lot of other artists don't want to touch it. If I were an artist and I heard Trisha sing it, I wouldn't want to try to cover it either. She really nailed it.
We were listening to the radio and I actually heard one of my songs, "Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart," performed by Randy Travis. So this was just an incredible moment, looking out over the mountains and then hearing one of my songs on the radio. The station was actually out of Denver, and I started to use Denver in the song, but we had also been to Jackson Hole, Wyoming on that trip and I decided Jackson sounded better.
The first verse, "I was standing at the counter, I was waiting for the change," was also based on an experience I had when I heard one of my songs for the first time. I was at a Shoney's restaurant and something that I had written came over the speakers. So I remembered that scene and thought, "I'll use that as the first verse." All of those scenes got jumbled around and ended up in this song, which was about a painful break-up.
We had a lot of trouble getting that song recorded. I was writing for BMG then and I went through a little bit of a depression because I thought that was as good a song as I would ever write and we could not get it cut. I actually had a couple of big producers who called me and asked me if I would consider re-writing it to make it more radio-friendly and more chorus-y. It doesn't really even have a chorus. But I just loved it the way it was and I didn't want to change it.
Then Kathy Mattea recorded it and I really very happy about it, until I found out it didn't make it on her record. That really sent me into a nosedive, with a lot of self-doubt. She told me later the label actually liked the song, but it didn't really match the flavor of the album.
We had pitched it to Trisha Yearwood for a previous album and that didn't happen either, but the second time around, she cut it. It later won the Nashville Songwriters Association Song of the Year, and even won an Emmy because Trisha did it in a TV special. Since then, it's almost become her signature song. When an artist gets identified with a song that closely, a lot of other artists don't want to touch it. If I were an artist and I heard Trisha sing it, I wouldn't want to try to cover it either. She really nailed it.
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