There is a writer who used to and I assume still does walk the streets of Nashville down around Music Row. I don't know him personally. It is only through the I-net that I know who he is. He quite often echoes what you have said Marc about "leaving it all to come to Nashville and do songwriting as a living." He says it as if that gives him some right to stardom that others don't have. He speaks of how good his songs are, how his demos are top rate and I think he's even set up focus groups to judge his music. For all his self promoting glory of his greatness though, he still hasn't had a hit or a major cut.

Then a girl like Carrie Underwood or a woman like Susan Boyle goes on a TV show featuring Simon Cowell and makes history. No pounding of the Music Row pavement, no knocking on music center door after door after door, no paying for "knock 'em dead demos." Some would say "They didn't pay no dues!"

The payment of dues can be done in many different forms of currency. For some, it's staying in some little city working as an accountant doing boring numbers crunching stuff all day long. For some it's years of playing in bars, smelling smoke, getting drunk, and being divorced. Either way, I see it as dues paying.

I went to Nashville with a head full of dreams and a little bit of talent. Maybe it was enough, maybe it wasn't. I was down on the row three or four days a week and some people still remembered me a couple of years ago but we sure couldn't shoot the breeze as easily as we used to. Whatever I had back then, I eventually realized I had to get a regular job. And there came a day of despair when I decided to leave, always planning to return in a few months. Then I met a woman. Her available smile suddenly meant more than more than dreams on Music Row. For me, her smile faded long ago. By that time my mom was older and fragile and my job paid well with benefits. And now, 20 years after I left, I'm the one who's growing feeble. And Nashville's different than it used to be. There's a naked statue at the big intersection. ASCAP's in a huge building and the old HOF building is part of the big BMI building. The Nashville Network is gone, Opryland is gone, even Johnny Cash and his house are gone. Conway's been gone from Nashville about as long as I have. I wonder who they miss more LOL.

We all make choices in life. Like McDill and Seals wrote: "Someday you're gonna know the cost, for everything you win there's something lost."

A long long long time ago I heard a fairly major talent with a supersize ego say "having a lot of talent doesn't mean you'll make it and not having talent doesn't mean you won't make it." That's what I hope people understand. If you don't understand that fact, you can grow real bitter. I didn't get bitter about music. Well, except for the fact me and Alan Jackson showed up in Nashville at about the same time. I like to say he stole my thunder :-)

I wish now I'd stayed in Nashville. People gave me advice on demos back then just like Marc is sharing now. I didn't take it. I can't sing so I know I wouldn't have been another Alan Jackson but who knows, I might have been a Peanut Montgomery.
"For everything you win there's something lost."

Well, this has been a cathartic trip down Memory Lane.