No End for Me

No End for Me

This song began as a chord progression. I played it for about a year and considered it as an instrumental. Then, my sophomore year I was going to do some kind of fundraiser for the theatre group called Roundtable, and my friend Scott Wilcox and I both wrote some songs on the fly. I added lyrics to the chord progression, and Rebecca Vazquez sang it with only one fifteen minute rehearsal (that's kind of how Roundtable worked in those days).  Someone recorded her singing it, and she killed it, frankly. I honestly can't tell you, how much of this recording is original, and how much is inspired by her singing. Maybe a mixture of both?  If anyone has a copy of that night, I'd be amazed.

I probably can't speak meaningfully about lyrics that I spend twenty minutes on, but sometimes we write out of our minds.  That's a fancy way of saying that there can be truth, even if we didn't put our heart and soul into the process.  The chorus sums up the idea that emotions don't necessarily resolve themselves, but often shift shape and go on.  

I think that chord progression had been such a part of my life (a year at least), that even though the song and lyrics had a brief life of their own, the song stuck with me. I revived the song with the first incarnation of the Navigators (the Louisville version) and Lethia Nall sang it a couple of times.  At one point during the hottest performance (on many levels- August in Louisville, Belvedere, say no more) I've played. 

Maybe that's why the song was still in my head during the Lost and Found recording a year later.  I'm fairly proud with the song from a writing stand-point, but really it's an opportunity for a musical free-for-all, which is why it has remained in the repertoire years later.  Tonya Buckler sang the song with my band The Fellow Travelers.  In hindsight, it seems ironic that most of the singers who sang this song were women, but the only one to record it was a man. I really wanted to record it, but in hindsight, maybe one of the many great female singers that I've worked with would have done a better job. 

It's one of those questions that I've explored with my song studies classes over the years.  How does gender impact the meaning of a song.  If you're curious about an example, listen to Lucinda Williams "Change the Locks," and then listen to Tom Petty's version.  Tom Petty makes the song sound like it's about the joy of liberation, and Lucinda William's is about finding safety from an abusive relationship, and yet they sang the same lyrics.  Weird.  I hope some day that a woman covers this song, so we can see if the song has a different meaning.  It would probably be a subtle change, but still....

I recorded this song with Colin Brown and Dave Humphries in my rhythm section.  I played guitar(s) and piano and sang.  Then Meredith Noel played viola and Bill Greene sang backup.