Pops (3:25)

Pops – (3:25) 76 bpm

Contact: Mark Lightcap
(530) 801-1216 mlightcap3@gmail.com

Songwriter: Mark R. Lightcap - ASCAP

Publishing: Chester Street Publishing - ASCAP

ISRC: QZYFK2300008

Recorded at: Bad Daddy Studios


“Pops” was one of a couple songs on this album that I wrote about a real person. The person they called Pops made the front-page headlines of the Enterprise Record around 2004 when a judge released him from prison and provided him with cab fare. The 92-year-old Pops had spent most of his life incarcerated at the Butte County Jail and was well respected by inmates and jailers alike. He begged the judge not to release him because he had nowhere else to go, claiming that the Butte County Jail was his home. His plea fell on deaf ears, so Pops had the cabby drive him straight to the bridge over Lake Oroville. It was there he jumped off the bridge, taking his own life.

It didn’t take long for my Country Western musician buddies and I to develop the song’s instrumentation. I wrote the song on acoustic guitar and that remained the instrument around which all the others played. Adding Steve Valine’s pedal steel was the frosting on the cake. I think we got the finished tracks done in one or two takes. Although the song’s story was a tragedy, it was an honor bringing Pop’s story to life through music.

Lead vocal: Lightcap Acoustic guitar: Lightcap Pedal steel: Valine Piano: Bones Johnson Fiddle: Renee Drums: Carini Bass guitar Hilke Backing vocals: Carini/Darlene Marie