Track 1 Downtown Sabinal is a town in South Texas that was built around the railroad line and the train depot. The center of town is full of beautiful old buildings that line the tracks, but almost every one of them is vacant and crumbling. I got to thinking about how some small towns don’t seem to have a center or point that people revolve around anymore, unless you could the super Wal-Mart. I wrote this song thinking about how Sabinal and other small towns like it are changing.
Track 2 Driving Myself Crazy I finished playing a gig in North Texas one night pretty late and had to be in Austin early the next morning. It was one of those gigs where you unplug your guitar, leave the stage, and start driving to the next gig. There was no time to relax, so I wrote the words to this song as I was driving to Austin. I wrote the music a few days later with Paul Lee, a good friend of mine.
Track 3 Can't Keep My Mind Off You This song is about going through a whole day and realizing that nearly every spare minute was spent thinking about seeing someone and how long until you’ll next see them. Sometimes that kind of thought process ends up with me traveling across the state and watching the sun come up from the highway.
Track 4 Treat You Like I Do This song is about wishing you could change something about yourself, but at the same time, knowing that you can’t.
Track 5 Lights Of Town A song about hoping and wishing that someone who’s moving away would come around in time to realize what they’re leaving behind.
Track 6 Open Window I wrote this song in Alpine, TX at the Holland Hotel. The temperature outside was about 70 degrees and the window to my room was open and facing the train station across the street. The train passed by late that night and it really was the most lonesome sound I’d ever heard.
Track 7 Listening To The AM You can still hear some of the best old country songs on the AM band, and the Road Gang and Bill Mack’s Midnight Cowboy trucking show reminds you that truckers and musicians have a few things in common. They both spend a lot of time on the road and work late at night, and besides, every country band that’s worth anything has to have a trucking song…
Track 8 House Of Cards I wrote this song when I was out at Big Bend, thinking about what it takes to keep a marriage together. Bukka Allen’s piano and Lloyd’s steel are perfect for this song.
Track 9 One Less Thing To Worry About When you feel like you’re in the middle of a losing streak, you’ve got to find a way to make yourself feel better. "Hey, that’s one less thing to worry about."
Track 10 Long Gone Daddy One of my favorite Hank Williams songs, first recorded in 1948.
Track 11 Passing Through Driving through a small town in the dark…You can get a good look at it if the moon’s bright. If there’s somebody you know that lives there, sometimes every building, every sound, and even the street lights can be a reminder of that person.
Track 12 I Wrote You A Waltz Just a short little love song that we cut on the last day in the studio. I wrote it while we were mixing earlier that week and on the last day of work on the album, we just hit record and played it.
