11. Back On the Street Again (2:41)Words and music by Steve Gillette

Recorded by the Sunshine Company in the late sixties, the single reached the top ten and paid for my Jaguar. An intoxicating ride on the ever elusive roller coaster of wealth and fame. Even more thrilling was the invitation to record the song as a duet with Linda Ronstadt as she made her first steps toward a solo career.

It may be immodest for a man to talk about his first love. To be so fortunate as to have experienced that miraculous awakening of body and soul, is enough. For that love to last would be even more miraculous. If not, as songwriters like to say, "At least I got a good song out of it." The first verse came to me almost fully formed when I was in the shower, something about the 'white noise' and the resonance of the tiles. The sad lines spoke to me as I contemplated the lonely days ahead. I used to say that I tried writing more songs in the shower, but it was ruining my guitar.

As an early song, it may not have the maturity of language of the later poet. That is to say, it's kind of a teenager's, puppy-love, Buddy Holly kind of creation. It's also a song written consciously to sound like songs on the pop charts. And that it came to rest somewhere near the top of the Billboard chart for a time around Thanksgiving of 1967, was a great consolation.

The song also employs a device, an experiment of changing the chords in an unexpected way. Most songs make an excursion from a 'home' chord through a 'progression' of related chords and then back to the 'home' chord. In this song, I intentionally moved from the G to the C and to the D, but then rather than returning to the G and repeating the sequence as so many songs do, I tried, C D G C, D G C D, G C D G, C D G G. A look at the sheet music can give a clearer understanding of the trick, but it was just a matter of surprising the listener by not going to the expected resolution at the expected time.

(ASCAP)

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