Big Lonesome
Big Lonesome
That’s my name
Ever since you went away
Things just ain’t the same
Big Lonesome
That’s me
Until you come back home
Big Lonesome’s all I’ll be
I used to be a lone wolf on the prowl
I made the rounds to every bar in town
Then you walked in and turned my head around
I can’t believe how quick I settled down
We said ‘I do’ then sealed it with a kiss
We walked together in a state of bliss
I was making up for all the love I’d missed
Never dreaming it would come to this
Big Lonesome
That’s my name
Ever since you went away
Things just ain’t the same
Big Lonesome
That’s me
Until you come back home
Big Lonesome’s all I’ll be
Now I’m staring at the TV set alone
It don’t matter if it’s off or on
I jump up every time I hear the phone
But it doesn’t seem to ring much since you’ve gone
Big Lonesome
That’s my name
Ever since you went away
Things just ain’t the same
Big Lonesome
That’s me
I hope you come back home
Baby please come home
Until you come back home
Big Lonesome’s all I’ll be
Written by Marshall Chapman and Tim Krekel
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Adm by Bug/ Mighty Nice Music (BMI) Adm by Bluewater Music
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Train (a recording studio in a converted Pullman car parked behind Union Station) Nashville, TN
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal and rhythm guitar
Tim Krekel – harmony vocal and lead guitar
Tommy Spurlock – dobro, steel guitar, and lead guitar
Mark Winchester – upright bass
Tommy Wells – drums
Down to Mexico
I’m going down to Mexico
Down to San Miguel where the cool winds blow
High up on the mountain plain
Nobody there’s gonna know my name
I’m gonna let my soul fly free
Find out what’s inside of me
I’m going down to Mexico
We were gonna fly down there together
Just like two songbirds of a feather
Sing our songs on the mountain slope
While the lights all shimmer in the town below
For the life of me I’ll never know
Why I’m standing here alone
We were gonna fly down there together
Why don’t you blow me away
Please somebody blow me away
I’m going down to Mexico
Down to San Miguel where the cool winds blow
High up on the mountain plain
Nobody there’s gonna know my name
I’m gonna let my soul fly free
Find out what’s inside of me
I’m going down to Mexico
Without you standing by my side
There’s no place left for me to hide
I’m going down to Mexico
Estoy lista
Muy muy lista
Llevame
Llevame ahi
Yo voy hacia Mexico
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by Bug
All rights reserved.
Recorded at the Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked December 10, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – atmospheric guitars
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Casey Wood – drums and percussion
Lisa Oliver-Gray, Marshall, and Bonnie Bishop – background vocals
Going Away Party
I’m throwing a going away party
A party for a dream of mine
So put me somewhere off in a corner
With a glass and bottle of your party wine
Don’t worry
It won’t be a loud party
I feel too low to get too high
It’s just a sad going away party
For a dream I’m telling goodbye
Don’t worry
It won’t be a loud party
Dreams don’t make noise when they die
It’s just a sad going away party
For a dream I’m telling goodbye
Written by Cindy Walker
Sony/ATV Acuff-Rose Music (BMI)
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 10, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – guitar
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Casey Wood – drums
Steve Herrman – trumpet
Falling Through the Trees
What’s that sound
Like something falling through the trees
You’d better run girl
Before it knocks you to your knees
Is it real?
Or just something in your mind
You know it’s hard to tell the difference some times
I have dreams
So big I get consumed
I have hopes
That some day they will come true
Call me a fool
But hear me when I say
I wouldn’t have it any other way
I have a feeling
When it comes my time to go
I will wonder
Why it took me so damn long
Lightning, thunder
Why they got nothing on the sound
Of those high hopes crashing to the ground
What’s that sound
Like something falling through the trees
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by Bug
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 10, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Mike Utley – Hammond B3 organ
Will Kimbrough – lead guitar
Jim Mayer – mini bass
Casey Wood – drums and percussion
Sick of Myself
I’m sick of myself
I want to be you
Would you trade places with me for a day, maybe two?
I’d like to know how it feels to be laid back and cool
To play that guitar the way that you do
Like your soul is connected to every string
And the whole room’s swaying when you’re playing that thing
Yeah, I’m sick of myself
Everyone loves you from Florida to Maine
You have lots of friends
They call out your name
Hey, Tim!
How you doing?
Can I tune your guitar?
Anything to bask in the light of your star
Yeah I’m sick of myself
If you’ll trade places with me
I’ll trade places with you
(Tim)
I’m sick of myself
I want to be you
Would you trade places with me for a day, maybe two?
I’d like to know what it’s like to be regal and tall
To charm a whole room with that Carolina drawl
To rock with a purpose like ol’ Jerry Lee
While wearing your soul on your rock & roll sleeve
Yeah, I’m sick of myself
Everyone loves you from Memphis to Boston
As the seats fill up
You can hear them all wonder
What will she do?
What will she say?
Then you sing ‘em a story and you blow ‘em away
Yeah, I’m sick of myself
If you’ll trade places with me
I’ll trade places with you
Written by Marshall Chapman and Tim Krekel
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Adm by Bug/ Krektone Music (BMI) Adm by Bluewater Music
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 10, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal and rhythm guitar
Jason Krekel – guest vocal
Will Kimbrough – lead guitar
Jim Mayer – electric bass
Casey Wood – drums
Jim Hoke – tenor and baritone sax, horn arrangements
Steve Herrman – trumpet
Tim Revisited
The last time I sang with Tim Krekel
The last time I sang with my friend
Bowling balls rumbled in the ceiling
While people danced like life would never end
One by one the band came up and joined us
They kicked us all into that higher zone
If you were there, then I don’t have to tell you
How we sounded better than the Rolling Stones
Everybody loved everybody
Everybody loved everything
But when Tim turned up his amp and started playing
I swear I heard a far-off angel sing
I’ll fly away
Now I don’t know about this thing called heaven
And I don’t give a damn about no hell
All I know is one night in Kentucky
Heaven rang out clear just like a bell
Everybody loved everybody
Everybody loved everything
But when Tim turned up his amp and started playing
I swear I heard a far-off angel sing
I’ll fly away
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by Bug
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 11, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Mike Utley – Hammond B3 organ
Will Kimbrough – electric guitar
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Casey Wood – drums
Jim Hoke – steel guitar, tenor sax
Steve Herrman – trumpet
Lisa Oliver-Gray, Marshall, and Bonnie Bishop – background vocals
I Can’t Stop Thinking About You
I can’t stop thinking about you
No matter what I try to do
My heart is aching like it’s gonna break in two
I can’t stop thinking about you
You were the best I’ve ever known
We had it all and now you’re gone
I see your face in every flower that blooms
I can’t stop thinking about you
So many happy memories
I’m told one day they’ll comfort me
Until that day comes I’ll keep crying these old tears
I can’t stop thinking about you
Nothing will ever be the same
Without you calling out my name
I’m doing all I can to live and carry on
I can’t stop thinking about you
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by Bug
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 11, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, harmony vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – electric guitar
Jim Hoke – steel guitar
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Casey Wood – tambourine
Mississippi Man in Mexico
Mississippi man in Mexico
How’d you get down here
Must’ve been a long and winding road
Uh-huh
Mississippi man in Mexico
Before you disappear
I want to know all there is to know
About you
Outside San Miguel the fires were burning
That moon so bright I thought I might go blind
You laid a feast before us at your table
In a field of cactus grown by your own hand
Buenas noches, Mississippi man
Now I’m back here in Tennessee
But part of me’s still there
Dancing in that cactus field
Moonlight in my hair
Tasting doves all wrapped in love
Finer than a kiss
Mississippi man in Mexico
Sweet dreams are made of this
Outside San Miguel the fires were burning
That moon so bright I thought I might go blind
You laid a feast before us at your table
In a field of cactus grown by your own hand
Buenas noches, Mississippi man
Adios por ahora
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by Bug
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 11, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – electric guitar, slide guitar
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Lisa Oliver-Gray, Marshall, and Bonnie Bishop – bkgd vocals
Casey Wood – tambourine
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I’m so lonesome I could cry
I’ve never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry
Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die
That means he’s lost the will to live
I’m so lonesome I could cry
The silence of a fallen star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I’m so lonesome I could cry
Written by Hank Williams
Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 11, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – resonator guitar (slide), electric guitar
Jim Hoke – steel guitar
Jim Mayer – upright bass
Casey Wood – drums
Lisa Oliver-Gray, Marshall, and Bonnie Bishop – bkgd vocals
Riding with Willie
When everything’s swirling around out of control
And everybody’s down to their very soul
Dancing to the rhythm of the universal whole
That’s the way I like it
Keep moving forward, baby, don’t you look back
The journey never ends when you’re running with the pack
This train’s moving fast and there ain’t no track
That’s the way I like it
That’s the way I like it
That’s the way it goes
The more love you give away
The more love that grows
Where it all ends up
Nobody knows …
That’s the way I like it
That’s the way it goes
Big wheels rolling down Interstate 10
I haven’t slept since I don’t know when
I couldn’t really tell you what state I’m in
And that’s the way I like it
Bobbie and Willie play music all night
Sister and brother what a beautiful sight
Songs long forgotten now seeing the light
That’s the way I like it
Written by Marshall Chapman
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Administered by bug Music
All rights reserved.
Recorded at The Insanery in Far East Nashville
Tracked on December 11, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal, harmony vocal, rhythm guitar
Will Kimbrough – lead guitar
Jim Mayer – electric bass
Casey Wood – percussion, vibraphone
Jim Hoke – steel guitar, tenor sax
Steve Herrman – trumpet
Lisa Oliver-Gray, Marshall, and Bonnie Bishop – background vocals
I Love Everybody
I love everybody
I love everything
I’ve got no agenda
I just want to dance and sing
It ain’t complicated
There’s nothing really to explain
I love everybody
I love everything
We’re living in a world of trouble
Living in a world of pain
All I have to do is turn my TV on
To see a world that’s gone insane
I think there might be a solution
If people everywhere would sing
I love everybody
I love everything
I don’t care about the weather
I can take it come rain or shine
I never feel stuck in a traffic jam
Or waiting in a check-out line
There’s nothing gonna get up underneath my skin
Or stop me when I feel this way
Cause I love everybody
I love everything
Written by Marshall Chapman and Tim Krekel
Tall Girl Music (BMI) Adm by Bug/ Mighty Nice Music (BMI) Adm by Bluewater Music
All rights reserved.
Recorded live at the Vernon, a music club/bowling alley in Louisville KY
May 30, 2009
Musicians
Marshall Chapman – lead vocal and rhythm guitar
Tim Krekel – harmony vocal and slide guitar
TKO (in order of appearance)
John Mann – lead guitar
Michael Murphy – sax
Donn Adams – trombone
Mike Williams – bass
Mike Alger – drums
Marshall on Big Lonesome …
I recorded this album after my best friend in music, Tim Krekel, died in June 2009. He was 58. We were planning to record a duet album called Sweet Talkin’ and had booked gigs throughout the summer, including a couple in San Miguel, Mexico.
We’d planned to include “Big Lonesome” (the song) on Sweet Talkin’. I originally recorded it in 1999 at Tommy Spurlock’s train studio (behind Union Station in Nashville) using ADAT. For years, the ADAT went missing. Then, just before recording this CD, Spurlock found it in a pile of stuff in his garage in Austin (where he now lives), and we were able to transfer it to ProTools. I didn’t even know Tim’s voice was on it. First miracle.
I wrote “Down to Mexico” on July 4, 2009, while flying to Mexico, six days after Tim’s memorial service.
I’ve been performing Cindy Walker’s “Going Away Party” since the early ’70s. I learned it off an old Bob Wills album in my then-boyfriend’s apartment in Boston. The relationship didn’t last, but the song did. Fans of my music have been hassling me for years about recording it. I’m glad I waited.
I wrote “Falling Through the Trees” when I realized my last album wasn’t going to happen. At least not as I had hoped. I like how this song and “Going Away Party” deal with the same theme—the devastation following the death of a dream.
“Sick of Myself” is the last song Tim and I wrote together. It started as an email from me to him, at a time when I really was sick of myself and thought, If I could be anybody else (for a day, maybe two) who would it be? So it was sort of a love poem from me to him. Within hours, Tim emailed me back with the last two verses. We both agreed this would be an excellent song for Sweet Talkin’. Shortly thereafter, Tim fell ill. We all hoped for the best as he sought treatment. But as things quickly deteriorated, I couldn’t help but think, Damn, I’d better get up there and record him singing his part, because he’s the only one who can sing it! I never got that chance. Nor did we ever get to put our words to music. In the back of my mind, I knew the song was a shuffle. I finally put it to music shortly before tracking in December 2009. Later, Tim’s son, Jason (Mad Tea Party), dropped by the studio and sang his dad’s part. The similarity in the timbres of their voices gives me goosebumps. And makes me smile.
“Tim Revisited”
On Sunday, June 14, 2009, Tim married his longtime girlfriend, Debbie Cooper. Jeff Hanna, Matraca Berg, my husband Chris, and I drove up to Louisville for the occasion. With fifty or so of Tim’s closest friends, we stood in a circle as Tim and Debbie exchanged vows in the sweltering heat and sun. I knew Tim had a doctor’s appointment that following Thursday. The silence over those days was deafening. Finally the phone rang. It was Debbie. “The news isn’t good,” she said. “The doctors say there’s nothing more they can do. We’re going home with Hospice.” Her words hit like a ton of bricks. That night, I wrote this song (or it wrote me). Two days later, I sang it to Debbie over the phone. “I want Tim to hear this,” she said and put him on the line. He sounded weak and a bit agitated. I didn’t know what to do. So I sang the song, fully expecting to hear a dial tone at the end. Instead, he came alive: “Now listen, Marshall!” he said, all animated. “When you go to record this, you be sure and put mariachi horns on it, you hear?” Those were his last words to me. Three days later he was gone.
“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” wrote itself one month after Tim died. I like to think Harlan Howard dictated this to me from heaven.
I wrote “Mississippi Man in Mexico” while flying back from Mexico (July 8, 2009). I’d spent a magical evening two nights before at a rancho outside San Miguel, where an American expatriate from Mississippi lived, cultivating cacti from all over the world. He and the owner of the property prepared a feast for us – doves which had been wrapped in bacon then cooked over hot mesquite coals, grilled cactus, fresh salsa, and so on. The clear night sky was filled with a million stars and the moon was full. After the meal, I leaned back to see the moon disappear behind a single purple cloud and thought of Hank Williams.
Later that night, I played songs for my host and his teenaged son, Mark, until the wee hours—songs long forgotten (i.e., ones I used to sing before I started writing songs) like “Me and Bobby McGee,” Buddy Holly’s “Everyday,” Robert Johnson’s “From Four ’til Late,” and Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” When I drew a blank on a line in the Hank Williams classic, Mark printed the lyrics out for me from his computer. Over the next few days, I’d sing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” in the empty courtyard of the house where I was staying, high up on a hill above San Miguel. I believe we captured that courtyard’s lonesome sound in this recording.
“Riding with Willie”
In August 2008, I spent three days on Willie Nelson’s bus. (I was there to interview him for my upcoming book.) The story of how this song came to be is documented in the book.
I wanted to end the album with a live recording (like Waylon did on Dreaming My Dreams). So we decided on “I Love Everybody” from the 2003 Belgium Rhythm & Blues Festival. Tim plays lead guitar and harmonica and sings on this track, so it seemed right and good. The only problem was we didn’t have a multi-track. (Our performance had been directly mixed in Belgium Radio 1’s mobile recording unit.) Regardless, the track sounded pretty damn good, so we decided to go with it.
After the album was mixed, I called Debbie (Tim’s widow) because I wanted her to hear what we’d done. As it turned out, she and her sister were about ten miles outside Nashville (driving north from Florida to Louisville), so we met for lunch at my favorite meat and three. During the course of conversation, she casually mentioned, “You know there’s a multi-track of the last time you sang with Tim at the Vernon.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. That night, a multi-track of “I Love Everybody” was overnighted to our engineer. The Belgium track got scratched, and what you hear here is the actual last time I played with Tim Krekel.
The first time I heard this track, I turned to Mike [Utley] and said, laughing, “Damn! I thought I was using hyperbole when I said we sounded better than the Rolling Stones!”