6 Days To Dudes: "Rainy Weather Friend"

I’m not sure why it took me so long to start writing songs with Bill DeMain. We had known each other for the better part of a decade before we ever got around to making music together in 2006. I had no idea what an important relationship it would turn out to be.

Bill and I actually tried to write a country song the first time we got together at his condominium in West Nashville. Mercifully, this effort deteriorated in about half an hour, and we ended up composing a fun little murder ballad called “Goodbye Marie” instead. The process was alarmingly copacetic. Once we stopped trying to write a ‘money’ song, we freed ourselves up to draw from our deep well of common reference points. Bill actually liked Harry Nilsson more than I did. Bill understood the connection between Richard Rodgers and Elvis Costello. Bill loved to play the ukulele and, on occasion, wore ascots. He was my kind of fellow; he spoke-a my language, bebbeh. It was as if I suddenly had someone finishing my musical sentences for me.

Good writing partners don’t just create good songs together; they also inspire each other to become better writers. At the end of our first session, Bill gave me a manila folder of lyrics to take home with me. Among others, it contained “Little Boats” and “Rainy Weather Friend.” I loved how sparse the lines in these songs were, how delicate yet powerful the imagery was. Bill had a real gift for extracting tiny details and using them to maximum effect. I needed this. My life was overwhelmed with large, amorphous issues that never seemed to get resolved. While songwriting had always been a way for me to control my environment, if only for three and a half minutes, I had lost my focus in a blur of touring, alcohol, credit card debt and marital tension. Working with Bill’s lyrics was like a meditation practice for me. I put music to “Rainy Weather Friend” in about fifteen minutes at home one afternoon. It was that easy; I can’t explain it.

Sometimes people show up in your life at just the right time. Whether he knew it or not, Bill DeMain showed me a way forward. It is very easy to get overwhelmed and disoriented in the swirl of life. Bill reminded me that the best cure for dizziness is to keep your eye on one single fixed point.