This is the fourth posting of videos by Jim Nunally and me. If you’ve been following my blogs on the subject over the past few weeks you know the saga. It’s covered in the previous posts.

We just posted videos from 2009 of these songs:

I remember when Jim first played me his song Something I Don’t Want to Know. The first couple lines are “Pullin’ little bolls of cotton/In the hot, hot sun.” My first thought was, “What does he know about picking cotton? Where is this song going? Where does it come from?” I soon found out and as he sang the lyrics they hit me like a ton of bricks. Something I Don’t Want to Know is an unsentimental and very personal song. It’s direct, deeply emotional, powerful, and I still marvel that anyone could so elegantly pull a song like that out of his experience and soul. It’s a great song and one of Jim’s best. I won’t say more about it than that and will let you experience it for yourself if you haven’t already. Something I Don’t Want to Know is from our The Way Things Are CD

Tell Me Why You Love Him So came to me on I-90, somewhere west of Spokane, WA, heading towards Seattle. Jim and I were on the road, it was mid-morning and we’d been travelling for some time. Though it has absolutely nothing to do with Tell Me Why You Love Him So, I remember that we’d been laughing like fools at a radio station out of Spokane that only played “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen. I’m not exaggerating. Its entire playlist back to front, top to bottom, side to side, was “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen. 

We discovered the station while channel surfing. We happened across a mock serious, grandiose announcer’s voice say something like, “This is KWLL,” (or whatever the call letters were) “Spokane’s FIRST all ‘Louie, Louie’ radio station!” Then “Da-da-dat, Da-dat, Da-da-dat, da-dat.” The song played and faded out and then immediately “Da-da-dat, Da-dat, Da-da-dat, da-dat.” They played it again. And again, and again! Every time the song would fade out we’d wait a second or two and sure enough, “Da-da-dat, Da-dat, Da-da-dat, da-dat” one more time and we’d fall apart laughing. Funnier every time it started up. And, this was from  “Spokane’s FIRST all ‘Louie, Louie’ radio station!” The first of many one assumed and hoped.

Maybe we were tired or a little punch drunk from the traveling but we listened to that station and “Louie, Louie” as long as we had reception. By the time we were out of radio range we were completely laughed out. Our jaws hurt and we were exhausted in that great way you only get from laughing uncontrollably. When the station finally faded we turned the radio off and it was quiet in the car.

My mind started wandering, I was probably dozing, Jim was at the wheel, and after a while I heard the first line of Tell Me Why You Love Him So in my head. After that I’d get little fragments of melody or lyric and hoped I’d remember both once we got somewhere where I could write it down. It was like trying to remember a dream. These things usually evaporate before they take form. I might have grabbed a pencil and piece of paper in the car, I don’t remember. I did get enough of it memorized or written down that once back home I finished the song and Jim and I started playing and singing it. Tell Me Why You Love Him So is from our In My Beautiful Dream CD.

We hope you like both of the songs. We have a few more videos to post in the coming weeks.

I just added some new matted photos to our collection of Historic Music Photos. The new ones are all antique postcards of young women playing mandolin and banjo. I think they’re beautiful. I hope you do too. Here’s a preview. You’ll find all our matted Historic Music Photos here.

The duo photo at the top of the page is by our pal photographer Charlotte Gibb. I guess taking all those photos of us way back when prepared her for the rocks, crags, and rugged beauty of Yosemite, where she’s regarded as one of the finest Yosemite and landscape photographers in the world. Check out Charlotte’s work on her website.

The photo of me at right is by Kathi Bruce.

All the best,
Dix

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