Fun story on writing a song!
As a songwriter, there's often an interesting story behind songs and how they come about. This goes back almost two decades, but it's still a fun one! 😃
Back in 2002, Phil Lesh and Dickey Betts did a mini tour together. During the tour Dickey was talking with Phil and said to him “If your fans are Deadheads, my fans must be Dickheads!”. 😁😆 From that point on, that's what Dickey's fans called themselves!
At this stage I had been actively writing songs since 1995 and I had been signed in Nashville to McClure and Trowbridge Publishing two years earlier, in 2000. I saw this “Dickheads” as a nom de jour handed to me on a silver platter! Naturally, here was an opportunity to take the ball and run with it!
My idea was to write a song that would sound like, but by no means copy, a Dickey Betts song. At this point, how I would theme it lyrically was unknown. But I did have an overall direction musically.
What I did know was that this would be a salute to Dickey Betts, and be entitled “I'm A Dickhead”!
I've been a major Dickey Betts and Allman Brothers fan since I was 14. Amazingly enough, later, in 2004 I was privileged to actually play with him at a party. I mention this just to establish that I was always a big fan of his. I wrote this song two years before I played with him, however. When we spoke I don't recall if I mentioned it to him? I did put it on his website forum, however, he's not so much an internet guy.
So, after I came up with the idea, I started working on the music. This was coming along more easy than I could imagine. I gave the theme some thought. I came up with the idea that I'd use names of his songs to guide the story line. As a tribute to him, what better way could it be done than using the song titles to his songs??? I ended up with over 15 of his song titles! It was a fun song to write using and fitting the song titles to a particular story line!
Often writing a song is like putting a puzzle together and this was no exception. There was the challenge of it, the fun in writing it, and there was the satisfaction when it was done. My friend Jay Korngold, who also played lead guitar in the Rabble Rousers, later told me that he thought it was the best song I had written. Thank you, Jay! That was in 2002.
I was particularly happy with the music, which I wrote first, naturally. Everyone said it sounded like a Dickey song, yet it didn't sound like anything he'd ever done before. That was exactly my objective, and it was so reassuring to be told that by people and musicians that heard it! (I used that same idea of writing a song about Willie Nelson that sounded like a Willie Nelson song, but wasn't, in 2006 with “Back In Texas, Back In Luck” also named “Willie Nelson”. It's a fun concept!)
We went into the studio with my band at
the time, Chris Rehm and the Rabble Rousers. The object here was essentially a rehearsal, to get everyone acclimated with the song and come up with a rough
demo. We just hung a single mic from the ceiling to capture it the recorded rehearsal.
In the end, this was the only recording we ever made of the song.
Chris Rehm and the Rabble Rousers:
Bruce Turkel – Harmonica
Jackson Bunn – Keyboards
Jay Korngold – Lead Guitar
Doug Weiser – Drums
Bass – Peter Seiler
Chris Rehm – Lead and Slide Guitar and vocals
“I'm a Dickhead” © 2002 BMI by Christopher R. Rehm
Arrangement by Christopher R. Rehm
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