Here's the latest recording from Toby. And I think it's the best one yet -- partly due to Tim Patterson's rich deep vocals. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Keith and Christina Crocker for breathing life into this song when I was ready to just quit on the concept.
I'd been kicking the idea around for over a dozen years. I envisioned it as a spaghetti western in song form. I had the title, the first verse and some bits and pieces of the rest. But somehow I couldn't quite finish it. In those years I began working on a screenplay with the title (yeah, I gotta finish it), and wrote another song based on a line in that embryonic script. But I couldn't finish this song.
I showed the lyrics (and some to another unfinished song) to the Crockers with the suggestion that maybe they could help me write the rest. I actually mentioned that I was ready to give up on "Bleed Me a River," but they encouraged me to press ahead with it; they liked what I had, unfinished though it was. And one evening we got together with a guitar and some unfinished lyrics. And...we finished them.
Working with Toby, this was the first time that I asked him to hire another vocalist. In my mind's ear I heard the song being sung by Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson or Country Dick. And I think Tim Patterson did an A+ job on this. Toby also made some suggestions -- specifically, it was his idea to put this in a minor key. That, of course, forced me to start asking my social media friends to explain what it means to change something into a minor key. So it was a learning experience for me, but it may very well have opened up some doors for future creativity in my songwriting. I realized afterwards that there's a strong "Ghost Riders in the Sky" vibe going on here, which actually works well for a song of this type.
Thanks again to Toby and Tim, but especially to my coauthors, Christina and Keith.
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