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Guest Blog & Song Premiere: Marvin Etzioni and Lucinda Williams, “Lay It On ...

31.12.69

The song is about D-I-V-O-R-C-E. You know that Wynette record made by Billy Sherrill? It has nothing to do with that song, and I wasn’t thinking about that song at all when writing or recording “Lay It On The Table” but that’s what comes to mind now. Wynette and Sherrill. What an amazing artist and producer/songwriter combination. It seems country music is the only form of songwriting that deals with the subject. At least in a really direct way. So I wrote the song on a beat-up out of tune piano. It was a premonition of what was to come in my life. I got as far as could with the song. “You don’t finish a work of art, you abandon it,” said Pablo Picasso. I knew it wasn’t finished, and I knew I didn’t want to give up on the song. The right set of circumstances arose when I traveled to Nashville and my former publisher at Peer Music, Steve Rosen, introduced me to Red Lane. I said, “You mean the guy who wrote “Red Bandana” for Merle Haggard? That’s all I needed to know. I was in good company and I’d met my match with Red. Red lives in an old grounded airplane in Nashville. We walked up a flight of steps and there we were. What was once first class, was now a living room. Ok by me. We finished the song that afternoon. he stood up and grabbed a jug of moonshine. This was my first taste. I thought I was gonna die. For red, it was Perrier in a plastic cup. I took the song back to L.A. Called Donald Lindley and we cut the basic track, acoustic guitar, vocal and drums. All live. He suggested that I add bass. I wanted to get someone else, but he really encouraged me, so there happened to be a Mustang bass in the studio and he gave that smile that said, c’mon. I told him I’d like to go for a Klaus Voorman, like on Plastic Ono Band. Simple and raw. He was in. he added a tambourine and that was the beginning to a very long road of getting the track. Greg liesz added pedal steel, then I got Jerry Yester for strings.

Source: American Songwriter