We Blame The Devil

6. We Blame The Devil
I wrote this song alongside my close friends and former Lonesome Standard Time band mates, Jenee Fleenor, (currently with the Blake Shelton band) and Brandon Rickman (current Lonesome River Band member).
My friend Tommy from East Kentucky told me a funny story about his grandfather and another man from their community having a falling out. This finally came to a head at the church where they were both members. Evidently, the fellow who had been angry with Tommy’s grandfather got up in open church to ask for his forgiveness. He said he didn’t know what caused him to say such terrible things about Mr. Tom—but he reckoned the devil was the cause of it all. Tommy’s grandfather then rose to make his peace with the man but supposedly said, “well, we blame the poor old devil for just about everything around here, but ole Bill is just gonna have to take the blame for this one himself!”
I thought it was a hilarious story. Of course, to make it really funny you would have to know Tommy and hear him tell it. I retold the story to Jenee and Brandon, and we all agreed it would make a great song. We intended to write it tongue in cheek; you know, “the poor ‘ol devil” sort of thing—but that is not how it turned out. We got to thinking about freewill and the fact that the devil only makes suggestions. The individual chooses whether or not to carry out those suggestions.
It was written melodically from more of an r&b perspective, but a couple years ago, I had an idea of how I could put it in a feel that would make it sound more like me. I went to Jenee’s house & we whittled it into what you hear now.
Jenee is playing fiddle on the track and she and Brandon provided the back vocals on this now serious piece. I had an idea to turn the song back toward its original state just a bit. So, I called the fantastic Angie Primm to do a hi-baritone part in the last chorus. This, along with the ad-libs she provided, really brought the track home. Thank you, Tommy, for the story and thank you to my dear friends Brandon and Jenee for co-writing this song with me.