On The Record
"Is It Worth It" (or where I lost the thread)
This series, “On the Record,” will be a weekly Substack exclusive in which I’ll go through my recorded catalog song by song starting with my first album, Alabama Song, which was released on MCA Records in 1998. Photos will be attached if available and tolerable.
It took some time to figure out why I stopped here. My last installment of “On The Record,” was on October 7, 2021. Zooming out, I was tired. My second memoir was days from being released, I’d just finished recording an EP, we’d started a major renovation on our home — it had been a year. Hell, it had been a decade and life was full. I decided to take a break.
But why did I stop here? Why did I choose to go no further at that moment, when I told you I’d get through all the songs in my catalog by doing an On The Record entry each week? It takes time to write, yes, but y’all know I fire these entries off as I think them — I would never call most of this writing my best so it isn’t as if I couldn’t have made the time to take an hour a week to do it. I’m not going to offer that excuse. Zooming in, it’s this song. This is when it happened, or at least became clear to me that it was happening.
I didn’t really write “Is It Worth It.” Though the song’s writing credit went to both my first husband, Butch, and me, it’s his song. If I did anything on it besides sing it I don’t remember doing it. The other ten songs on The Hardest Part are definitely mine, but that one isn’t.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to say that I didn’t write it, it was that I didn’t want to look at how and why such a thing happened, even though it was over twenty years ago. I didn’t want to admit that was the moment it all went to hell for me, that moment I agreed to put my name on something that wasn’t really mine because someone else wanted things to look a certain way. That was the agreement we made. He said it would be like Lennon/McCartney.
I don’t want this to be confessional. I don’t want to trash anyone and I won’t. But during the years that I made these three albums —The Hardest Part, Miss Fortune, and The Duel — I was probably at my darkest. There are a million adjectives I could throw at it, but the most important thing to note is that I had very low confidence in myself. Before I started making records, I didn’t really get to explore my own musical curiosities. In hindsight, it all happened very quickly. I started writing songs in 1994 and released my first record — on a major label mind you — in 1998. I didn’t while away hours in the studio experimenting with this sound and that producer and different co-writers. No one sat me down beforehand and said, “Allison — you’re going to be given an opportunity here, one that a lot of people would sacrifice almost anything for, but you need to be careful about what it is you do, how it is you do it, and with whom you do it because those decisions are going to affect not only the art you make, the art you get to make in the future, and how it all is or isn’t consumed, but also and more importantly the very quality of your and your family’s life.”
There isn’t generally anyone at a record label that will say that. Maybe they don’t have that point of view, maybe they don’t care, but the music business is one for young folks, so they give record deals to children. There are few great child artists. I didn’t know anything about making art in 1997, and what I know now would fill a thimble. Isn’t that the great joke of life, though? By the time you figure out how to live it your time is at least half over?
I actually love those three albums, though, a whole lot. Just because I don’t feel as much ownership, particularly of Miss Fortune and The Duel, doesn’t mean I didn’t work incredibly hard on them and figure out how to find myself in them. But are they in the direction I would’ve gone had I realized I could’ve taken my time making them? No one told me I had time. So I did what I thought I had to do — I undermined my own creativity and instincts and allowed others to tell me when, where, how, and with whom I should make what music. Butch turned me on to some great music and sensibilities that I might not have otherwise found out about at twenty-one, when we met. He’s smart, talented, and has great taste. We wrote some good songs together and did some good work. But he took over, plain and simple. He was the only person I was allowed to listen to about anything and it was not a happy time. It lasted through the early fall of 2004. It took me that long to find a way to start getting myself, and my music, back.
I like the song, though. I always thought it was quite Kristofferson-esque. And it fit perfectly into the song cycle that makes up The Hardest Part. If I remember correctly, we recorded it with everyone in one room at Treasure Isle studio in Nashville. It was the one song we didn’t track at Woodland Studios, where we began the record in June 1999. I wonder now how effective the mono to stereo effect really is — twenty-three years later it feels a little gimicky but otherwise? Classic city. I love it. And just in case you’re wondering — those years brought me so much love and enduring friendship, not to mention a start in show business. I met so many people during that time that I’ve either stayed close with or reconnected with in recent years. In particular Kenny Greenberg, who is one of my most near and dear, forever and always. I look at it all as a wonderful gift of love and discovery. And I’m grateful I’m not still so unhealthy. I’ve done so much work on myself since then that it sometimes makes my head spin. It’s funny — some days we feel like we never really get anywhere. Then we look back and our jaws drop.
I liked some things about who I was then.
I love every bit of myself now.
Life is school. I like that I know that now.
Personnel:
Acoustic guitars: Kenny Greenberg, Richard Bennett,
Bass: Michael Rhodes
Drums: Chad Cromwell
Harmonica: Jim Hoke
Recorded by Peter Coleman at Treasure Isle Studios, Nashville, TN.
Mixed by Justin Niebank at Masterfonics, Nashville, TN.
We’ll see if I get to “Send Down an Angel” next week. No promises.
Onward,
AM
Allison, you take all the time you need. These stories about your tunes are gifts well worth waiting for. Thank you.
I can't tell you what reading these means to me. Your albums have been the soundtrack for my entire adult life, and I have a memory for every song. Getting the chance to share in your memories of where you, too, were in your life has been a gift that I don't take lightly. Thank you for sharing them with us.