THEA: Another one of Chad’s great ideas. There are some beautiful metaphors here.

“And though they may be warm enough that we still won’t let go” is the most significant lyric change I personally made; most everything else was a cosmetic change to Chad’s ideas: a better word here, a better rhythmic phrase there, and at the end a minor-but-necessary direction change where the singer is not just describing what’s happening, but expressing his personal desperation.

During our process on this song (which took over 200 Suno generations), Chad said to me, “I wish people understood how hard this is.”

And that is one of my motivations for writing all these summaries of what we do.

There is a remarkable amount of debate that goes on regarding the use of tools like Suno to make music. I am aware there are people who just churn out stuff with sloppy prompts and nonsensical AI-generated lyrics, and distribute it to streaming services in an effort to make easy money.

That has very little resemblance to what we’re doing. But it’s also not our goal. We’re actually writing, and we’re doing it for human performers…so we really work hard to get the tunes right. Suno might give us the perfect take with everything we want and then we’ll hear some odd machine blemish, a strange note in the bass line, an extra bar, or some errant chord that only happens once. In this case, many of the takes were good except for one thing…but the reason we finally felt good about this one is that there were no structural problems, and coming out of the bridge, the desperation in the vocal track was what we’d been looking for.

So there’s a little behind-the-scenes look at the effort we make on every song.

THEA: Some of our songs are written largely together, but not this one. Though I have the more extensive musical background, Chad is a far more creative person than I am…and almost all of our best ideas start with him. And I think this one is brilliant: “The worst thing I ever did was nothing, and nothing is what made you leave.”

As I look back at the first set of lyrics as they were presented to me, it’s remarkable how little we changed lyrically as we worked through this. The big change I talked him into was a style overhaul…it started out very different musically. Once we agreed on how to present it, my job was to add and subtract mostly just cosmetic lyrics to make the phrases land in the pocket, but honestly, I changed very little. The time we spent on it was mostly in producing: trying to make Suno do what we wanted it to do, which is sometimes much harder than people assume.

And please don’t get me wrong…mine is a very important job. I’m usually the one who takes a very, somewhat, or slightly raw product and gets the lyrics ready to push out the door—and I definitely make my share of the musical decisions while at that stage, Chad’s attention is largely on wrangling the technical stuff. But this excellent song was nearly all Chad. And I feel like we got it right.

CHAD: I can’t even begin to describe how important Thea is when it comes to making these songs work.

THEA: I was just on clean up here. The only thing I had to do was identify the problem and offer a few fixes.

In this case, we just had to change the perspective (he was talking to the “Devil”, not about her, when I first heard it), take a couple more obvious phrases and replace them with some that felt more fresh, and add a few words to make one or two phrases land better in the pocket.

I think this tune would be best used on a Taylor Sheridan TV show like “Landman” or “Dutton Ranch”—a line dancing song, or one that accompanies one of the beautiful villains as she walks into the local bar.

Not Beth Dutton though. Beth Dutton would never be with anyone but Rip. [LAUGHS]

CHAD: This song came about from a couple of different things.

When I was a kid, and a teenager, I attended many weddings of family, and family friends. At some, I even filled in on bass with my father’s country & western band. Some weddings - and many receptions - happened in grange halls. This is a memory that has stuck with me.

The second thing is that I wanted to see if I could write songs in the style I grew up hearing. I don’t know if I accomplished that, since it definitely sounds more modern than that, but the inspiration was there.

It took a while to move beyond the idea of a country waltz - I heard plenty of those growing up. Once I got it into a more modern - maybe Neotraditional - country style, it just clicked.

I know Thea objected to use of the word “carpet” when it appeared, and we changed it. She was right.

Anything to add, Thea?

THEA: I used to play in a nightclub that had carpeting on the floor. It had so many drinks spilled on it that you could feel the stickiness under your feet when you walked around talking to people on break. I hear “carpet” in a lyric and I’m right back in that club.

I don’t want to be right back in that club. I want to be as far away from that club as I can get.

But…it needed to be changed to “that old floor that learned our steps by heart” anyway. It’s just a nicer image…right?

THEA: Another of Chad’s ideas; he does a lot of traveling so he’s quite familiar with the grind of airports and long drives, and the feeling of just wanting to get home.

We focus group our country songs with one of my three beautiful grand-nieces here in the Midwest, who is a fan of the genre (we call her our “Taste Tester”). She works with her husband, but he is something of a celebrity in his field and has to travel more than she does. In my mind, they’re the people in this song…I see his pickup stopping in the driveway and her greeting him at the door, just extraordinarily happy to see each other.

My favorite line: “Every one I put behind me gets me closer to your smile.”

Which is Chad’s line, of course.

Would you like to talk about this one, Chad?

CHAD: I think this one is self-explanatory. Just a guy really eager to get back home to his family after being on the road. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m on the road a lot. Whether I’m driving or flying, it all starts to look the same. Airport gates, hotels, truck stop diners. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. (Except Vegas where there’s slot machines)

It’s really the trip home that reinvigorates you: Everything being left behind you as you’re making your way back to the ones you love.

Thea was, once again, a huge help in taking my rough draft and turning it into something great. This is also one of my favorites.

CHAD: This one speaks for itself. There’s a lot of men out there who are pretty tough to live with. I’m pretty sure I’ve not always been easy. Somehow, though, they find partners who actually stay with them even when they don’t deserve it.

This song is from the perspective of a man who understands it, acknowledges it, and owns it.

It was while working on this song I learned - from Thea - that the order of words can make a huge difference between a line that is okay, and a line that is really good. Also, changing perspectives. One example would be changing “when you met me” to “when I met you”. The first one is awkward and clunky. The second is more smooth and easy to sing. Another great change she made was changing the word “folks” to “people”.

I think overall the song turned out really well, and it’s one of my favorites.

Anything you want to say about this, Thea?

THEA: Thank you, Chad…I should probably clarify for the readers a little bit. And if you’re a vocalist, you probably already know this:

It’s kind of a friction thing. The phrase “when you met me” has more friction in it than “when I met you”. (Just say the words. You’ll see what I mean.) The first phrase isn’t necessarily clunky, it just has more resistance…and sometimes it might be the preferred lyric, depending on other factors. The other thing I consider is how something lands rhythmically, how it dances with the melody.

Minor detailed changes like this are what I refer to as “cosmetic changes”.

The change from “folks” to “people” not only improved the picture in the mind’s eye (IMO), it added a little percussiveness to the phrase, which I love. “Most people woulda walked away then” just lands so beautifully right there.

If you recall, we made several of these cosmetic changes to this song, and I honestly think this one could be a country hit. Once you hear it, you don’t forget that hook.

ANYWAY…little effort, big impact…that’s me! [LAUGHS] We’d be nowhere with any of this without Chad, but I’m the annoying details person. I should put it on a business card.

CHAD: This one is, I think, pretty self-explanatory. I - like many people - had a lot of adversity growing up, and at the time I saw a pretty dark future ahead of me.

Eventually, though, after years of being constantly on the move and never really settling down into a “normal” life, I was able to finally see a future that wasn’t dark.

This song was written in response to having that realization many years ago. I couldn’t have written a song like this when I was younger, but older me was able to do so in hindsight.

I know Thea definately made some improvements in this, as always.

Anything you’d like to add, Thea?

THEA: I don’t think so.

THEA: I think we started out using a full band on this one, before we came to the conclusion that it sounded lyrically more like an intimate conversation between two people who love each other enough to wait to see each other—regardless of how much they wanted to be together.

Stripped it down to acoustic and it felt right.

Sometimes I think it could be a PSA for the Wisconsin DOT, but of course that’s not why we wrote it. And we were both amused by the ambiguity of the title.

Chad?

CHAD: Thea was the inspiration for this song in a way. I often have to go a few states away for work - it’s the Midwest, so it’s all drivable - and the 9 to 12 hour drives can be done in a day. However, Thea said something along the lines of “Look, take an extra day to do this. We don’t care if you’re gone an extra day. Just be safe.”

Beyond just being an inspiration with the “be safe” conversation, she also did a lot of work helping turn it into something pretty cool.

My favorite line is “I’d rather spend another night alone, than forever without you.”

CHAD: I was exploring Country music, and looking to see what styles there are out there that are unusual. Eventually, I decided that what I really wanted to do was something I considered either “dark country” or “noir country”.

And, since it was a darker type of Country music I wanted to explore some darker topics. This one tackles the issue of loneliness.

I travel a lot for work, and make the same drives fairly often. I tend to break my trips into segments and stop in the same familiar places along the way. I often see some of the same people in those places every time no matter the time of day or night I get there. I wondered about that. Why is the same guy sitting there drinking coffee whenever I’m there no matter what time it is?

That question led to me writing a story about a person who does that.

It’s definitely not a “happy” song, and it was made even less so when we were trying to work through the bridge when Thea said “Make it Christmas”. So, yeah.

I’m sure you made other changes too, Thea. Would you like to discuss any of those?

THEA: Well, it’s closing time, it’s snowing, nobody’s there except this guy and the waitress, the traffic tells us everyone else has somewhere to go (Chad’s so good at painting these scenes)…so as long as we’re sympathizing with this lonely older man, we also imagine that his holidays are desperately lonely too. And I feel for him even more at that moment in the song.

I think I changed whatever you had to “countdown on the wall”, and a few other things…but this one was (as is most often the case) your concept and primarily your writing, and it’s a good thing to talk about.

Because next time we see “that guy”, we can at least smile at him and ask him how he’s doing.

Or just quietly pay for that coffee.

CHAD: This one started out as a simple idea - a song about cellar holes. You can imagine how hard Thea laughed when she heard that. “You can’t write a song called ‘Cellar Holes’.”

Challenge accepted.

In New Hampshire, cellar holes are basically stone-lined holes in the ground that used to be, well, cellars for homes. That’s what I knew them as, and that’s what they are called. But I suppose she was right - a song called ‘Cellar Holes’ would be weird.

As a kid, and a teenager, I would stumble across them every so often on the mountain. This song is pretty descriptive of a time I found one: stone walls that marked property boundaries, the cellar hole itself still there with trees growing in it, and an old charcoal kiln that was still somewhat recognizable.

But what really stayed with me was the small family cemetery. After 100 - maybe even 200 - or more years, the names were worn away, so there would never be a way to know who had made a a life there. I remember walking away having a lot of thoughts about this that were not the usual things a 15-year old boy would think about.

So, Stones On The Mountain. Everything was about the stones - the stone walls, the kiln, the cellar, and especially the headstones.

Thoughts, Thea?

THEA: You can’t write a song called “Cellar Holes”.

CHAD: Yes I can.

THEA: Well you didn’t, did you?

CHAD: Originally this song was going to be a sequel to “The Last Booth By The Window” as I was exploring “noir country”. The same guy, after he left the diner when it closed. Nothing was really supposed to happen. He just either didn’t have anywhere to go, or maybe he just wasn’t ready to go home yet.

Well, you can’t really have a story that leads nowhere. (Thanks, Thea!)

So, I went back to the drawing board and though much of the song stayed intact, we eventually fleshed it out more and it became more interesting - a veteran that made it home when some good men he served wth did not. A touch of PTSD and “survivor’s guilt” gave us the story that was worth telling.

As for some songwriting mechanics, I had a line something like “until the old ghosts stop chasing me, and ride with me a while”. Thea really changed it up, and it eventually became “Until the old ghosts stop following me, and just ride here beside me for a while”.

Simple changes like changing “chasing” to “following” and the addition of a word like “just” really transformed the lines into something both singable and more interesting.

I’m sure you have to have something to say about this one, Thea.

THEA: I believe in addition to the “song to nowhere” discussion, I brought up the idea that I need a reason to really care about this guy. He needs a story, he can’t just be driving around.

Within a few minutes, you had decided his story would be that he is a veteran—a topic you know well—and from there, we (mostly you) started crafting these lyrics. I think I came up with “their faces never leave my mind”, based on your slightly different original idea for that phrase, and there were half dozen or so others like that…but you ran with this concept as usual, and I love that it gives voice to the haunting guilt some vets feel: that they shouldn’t have been the ones to survive combat. And that it stays with them the rest of their lives. That they can’t shake it.

May as well invite the old ghosts to just ride there beside them for a while.

CHAD: This one started out as a bit of a joke. I used to drive around all night in a security job I had when I was just out of the military. At the time you had a couple of choices for listening to the radio - pre-recorded shows that you had already heard, like the Top 40 Countdown from earlier in the day, or night time AM radio.

AM radio at night was… interesting. A show like Coast to Coast with Art Bell was great entertainment that would get you through a long boring shift. So, I wanted to write about stuff like “I just saw a Chupacabra cross in front of me on Interstate 80” and things like that.

Luckily, Thea pulled me to the curb as she always does. Eventually the story morphed into an overnight AM radio DJ having an “open line” night where people called in. Everything worked well, until we got to the bridge.

The bridge should be the emotional center of a song, often times. In this case we were trying to figure out what to do. Thea suggested that we have a caller who is looking at a bottle because he’s tired of being alone. I believe we initially discussed it as he was a recovering alcoholic and was struggling not to drink.

However, when we finished it the bridge was a lot more ambiguous. Was it a bottle of alcohol? Was it a bottle of pills? That’s up to the listeners to decide.

Either way, the message really is that sometimes you just need someone to listen. That’s true for the callers on the show just as much as it is for the DJ, I think.

Anything to add, Thea?

THEA: I think the bridge DID work out well. I know a lot of people who’ve struggled with the destructive impact of addiction, and some who’ve experienced the depths of depression and mental illness (my oldest brother, who was a brilliant engineer, committed suicide when I was just out of high school); I was thinking of a struggling alcoholic when I made this suggestion, but I love how you mixed some ambiguity into the phrase so we don’t know what kind of bottle we’re talking about.

And we also don’t know how long the caller held off the demons. But we find ourselves hoping he won that fight.

Love how you crafted it, Chad. That’s what it needed. Also love your observation that listening is as important to the DJ as it is to the caller.

THEA: This song is about an actual experience I had. For many years, I sang lead and background vocals in a variety of Top 40/R&B bands. It’s not true for every genre of music, but for that one, it’s a little easier to age out performance-wise. When I found myself getting to that point, I decided to go back to my roots: My best friend and I had an acoustic duo that played around Wisconsin Dells when we were in high school, so I pulled a guitar out of storage and took it to a pro shop in Seattle where I was living at the time.

This particular instrument had no truss rod, and the neck had bowed over the years, causing mild intonation issues on the higher frets. The cost for the repair was more than the guitar was worth, and the luthier’s recommendation was to (quite unceremoniously) throw it away.

“Can I just give it to a student?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Should I just donate it? It still has such a warm, beautiful tone.”

“Unless you want to pay for a neck re-set, I wouldn’t give it to anybody.”

When I heard this, the diagnosis made me irrationally upset. I mean, who doesn’t want to go buy a new guitar? Who is bothered by that idea? But I found myself crying over it for about a day before I realized what was really bothering me: I was the guitar. I still sounded good, but…I was older. Maybe it was time for me to be thrown away too.

Or maybe not.

So the song (largely crafted by Chad, at my topic suggestion—and refined by the two of us over the kitchen table) is about a Takamine nylon string guitar.

It’s also about me.

And FWIW: I didn’t throw it away.

Anything to add, Chad?

CHAD: This is Thea’s story to tell. I just helped her bring her story to life.

I will say, though, that originally I had used the words “repair shop” because I thought “luthier” was too much. Thea, rightfully, pointed out something like “Let’s just say ‘music store’” and I have to say it flowed a lot better. She does a lot of that, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t listen.

THEA: If you didn’t listen, you’d be doing this without me. [LAUGHS]