Tamden Mind And Body

Kindly Keep It Country: This song is the very latest of around 150 plus songs that I have written. I had already recorded all the songs that I was going to record for the CD Kindly Keep It Country. I was listening to a demo of the CD with a friend of mine and he asked me why I hadn't written a special song for the CD called Kindly Keep It Country. So after the fact and bass ackwards as always, I sat down and wrote the song Kindly Keep It Country.

Deer Hunting Season Again: in Wisconsin most young boys get to experience the art of Deer hunting with their families, relation and friends. And in most cases it is an experience that will be remembered a long, long time. Well after 50 years of hunting, I started when I was 10, and after 50 years of hunting experiences, 40 of that with my family and friends I wrote the song Deer Hunting Season Again. Most of the things that happen in the song actually happened in my life. The part about Uncle Joe sitting on the wood stove is not entirely true. It wasn't Uncle Joe and it wasn't at deer camp. It happened at a bar that I was going to when I was 17 and all my school friends were 18. I watched a very intoxicated man prop his butt down on the wood stove. He let out a blood curdling yell that could be heard probably two blocks away. They took him up to emergency and he couldn't sit for a month.The part about Grandpa Earl shooting the neighbors cow is also something that didn't happen the way I said in the song. Again it was someone else, but it did happen during the Wisconsin Gun Season. It seems this guy from Chicago came up hunting in the North woods and shot the neighbors purebred Jersey cow that was standing in the barnyard. The part about the wife packing the socks in the gun case isn't politically correct in that it wasn't his socks but his underwear and my brother received one heck of a tongue lashing when he got home. He had complained that he didn't have any clean underwear and his wife informed him if he had really hunted like he claimed he did he would have found the underwear packed where she put it, in his gun case.Another thing that happened in deer camp but was not put in the song was when my other brother came down to hunting camp and unloaded as he always did, the camp food. Then he turned to get his rifle and realized that he had left it at home on the table. Fortunately his wife and her mother drove the 60 miles and brought my brother his rifle. Bless their hearts.The part in the song about falling into the swamp on a cold November Morning is also true.The temperature that particular morning was 18 below and we drove this swamp. I heard my brother go through the ice and I went over and checked the situation out. There he was in the middle of this creek that was only about three feet deep. He had this blaze orange poncho on and it was spread out across the top of the ice like a ladies dress. It really was quite a sight to see. By the time we got him back to the car he was likely darn near froze solid. That ended my brother's day of deer hunting. That was the same brother that forgot his rifle.Drinking beer and chasers at deer camp is SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure) Crawling out of the sack at three AM is also SOP. In a lot of cases the first place to go is the outhouse. Hence the reason for trying to get up before anyone else. When you get up and try the legs out on the morning after, you usually end up staggering.Taking a Nature Call in the middle of the day is par for the course. You quickly learn to take the hat off before attempting this feat because if you don't I think the blood rushes to the head and causes a severe pain in the head more commonly known as a headache. In reference to this situation brings up the need for sleep. Some guys just fall asleep in their stands, but as the song points out you don't have to worry about them freezing to death because the alcohol in the system will keep them from freezing. When I hunted with about 10 to 20 guys in a deer camp we very rarely got venison for ourselves let alone camp meat.After missing a few deer, the total deer count after the nine day hunt usually netted three to four deer.So with all these memories plus eighty dozen more I wrote Deer hunting Season Again. I hope you people enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Your Memory: This is one of my favorite songs that was written a little over 30 years ago. This song was actually written for a young lady that left me when I was serving my time in Viet Nam. I dated her while on my 30 day leave before shipping off to Viet Nam. While I was stationed at Saigon she wrote and told me that she had found someone else and she was no longer interested in me. When I got home I found that she and her then husband had moved to Southern California and all I had was this haunting memory. So that's what I wrote about.

Hello Mister Bartender: This song was written in the year 1967 while I was stationed at Fort Monroe, Virginia. In Hampton, Virginia I teamed up with a country band and played accordion and did some vocal work. There was this young lady named Joan that sang with the group and she was good. She sounded a lot like Loretta Lynn. One time when she and I were talking she challenged me to write something about her in a song. I wrote the Hello Mister Bartender and did it with the group while I was with them. She liked the song as did everyone else that heard it. It basically was the story of a man talking with his favorite friend in the world, the bartender when the love affair goes wrong.

She Don't Love Me Anymore: Another song out of my service years. This song I wrote for a friend who was suffering from a Dear John letter. Seems he feel head over heels for some Vietnamese woman and she dumped him. He said to me when we were playing guitars together, "Why not write a song about missing a woman once she's gone." So, that's what i did. I wrote it for him and his long gone girl. Miss her voice, miss her kiss, etc. The year was 1968. Now 39 years later I Include it in my newest CD.

Thank You Lord: I have always enjoyed barbershop, especially when it came to Gospel. This song was written about 1975 and I wrote it because i felt the need for a little spiritual guidance. At the time, my wife, who has become my ex-wife and I were having some marital problems. My dad kept advising me to turn to the Lord for answers. Well I don't know if the Lord helped me with that problem as she served me papers, but I did sit down and write the song Thank You Lord, which has been a real blessing because every time I've done it for someone else it seems to help them. The song simply says that we are all God's children and should always do every thing in your power to help your fellow man. When a man is drowning you don't throw him an anchor, you give him a helping hand. That's what this song is all about.

Pain In My Past: A humorous look at love gone bad. Relationships often end in something that isn't considered at the time exactly what you planned. As long as I blamed her for everything, it made me feel better and it made it easy to write a good song. For quite a while after our relationship I often felt like she was there beside me always bugging me. Now almost 40 years later, I can see that what happened in our case was the best for every one concerned. But experience is always the best teacher and from my divorce came the song Pain In My Past and its a song that everyone seems to relate to and they seem to enjoy hearing it.No

Disappointments Up There: the song was written in February of 2007 right after my mother passed away. I wanted to write something that was a little like bluegrass because my association with bluegrass was always more gospel sounding than anything. After my father passed away 18 years ago my mother said things that didn't mean that much at the time, but the more she talked to me the more I knew she was missing Dad. She kept looking forward to the day when she would join dad. Sometimes in the things she'd say you could detect that this yearning was always there. She talked about the troubles, the sorrow and the pain that she was feeling. It wasn't the physical pain that people her age experience, it was a mental pain. The pain also came in something someone had said to her. Mother had a hard time dealing with dad being gone. She had all the riches in life she needed, but there was always something missing. I wrote the song starting it with something I knew that was bothering her. There'll be no more troubles, no more sorrow, no more pain. She kept reminding herself that there would be no disappointments in heaven. Another line that refers to her thinking and something that she told me one time is the line, it won't matter what we leave behind. This is a song that actually turned out to be more of a tribute to the woman I loved that I called Mom. I hope you'll find this song as thought provoking as I intended it to be when I wrote it.

Tribute To Johnny Cash: This was one of those fun songs I wrote. I knew this girl and although she was nothing more to me than a friend, she was a very big Johnny Cash fan. I often kidded her about her love affair with this big tall drink of water known to so many as Johnny Cash. She did not hail from Reno as the song says, but she actually was from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I met her while attending College at the Stevens Point campus in the fall of 1963. Although none of the things I wrote in the song happened, I had a ball writing the song for her. Her comment? I could see something like that all happening to a really true Johnny Cash fan.Personally I thought she was a big Johnny Cash fan. I too was a big fan of the man in black and I had a lot of his early recordings. Using song titles like I Still Miss Someone, Ring Of Fire, Born To Lose and even mentioning the now famous Cadillac and the suit of black and mentioning his loving wife June Carter. I was able to convey a humorous vision of this particular Johnny Cash Lover. People that hear the tune will recognize Folsom Prison Blues. Without the tune I think the song would be just another Johnny Cash song. I believe in this case the tune has to be one of Johnny's biggest hits. I hope you will enjoy my tribute to the legendary Johnny Cash.

She's A Woman: When I was entertaining with my brother there were several times when I would have to drive long distances before I arrived home at about three in the morning. My brother would always get dropped off at his home and then there was always the 45 minute drive for me before I'd arrive home. On one such occasion I was thinking about what my wife had told me about me being so down on myself for being a musician. She told me that what I was doing was the right thing because I made so many people happy and it also was doing something that I enjoyed. She always told me how much she supported me and how much she loved me. That inspired the song She's A Woman.

Don't: This is a rock and roll type song with lots of different chords involved with the song.Written in the 60's it simply tells the woman not to mess up or the man will be gone. It states that the man don't want to find her with another man. It basically says to the female that if she has it on her mind to leave or cheat on him for another, she's better tell him first. I have no idea where the idea for this song came from but I'm willing to bet their was a female at the bottom of it. There usually was. That's what kept me writing songs all these years.

Your Number One Fool: I remember this song. It came from being in love with someone that just didn't want me around any longer. I kept thinking yeah, she cheated on me but that didn't make any difference because if she wanted to come back to me I would take her back even though I was probably a fool for doing so. I knew if she came back she would just cheat on me all over again. And like my father told me, you know, love is not only deaf and dumb but it is blind as well. And basically, that's what this whole song is all about.

Beautiful Woman: The idea for this song came about when I was sitting on a park bench in the local mall one day while my wife was out spending our hard earned cash. I was watching the people walk by and there was one young lady in particular that I enjoyed watching. She was just absolutely beautiful. I thought maybe if she would walk a little slower by me each time I would be able to see and admire the beauty that God gave to her.So when I wrote this song that thought came to me and I decided to write a song to include all the beautiful women in this world as I wrote: Beautiful Lady, Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Woman its you.

Listen To the Children: From the effort of me towards writing a truly Gothic type of song, this was one of the songs I wrote about 30 years back. The pretend album that was never recorded included this song. It is a thought provoking song and was intended to be that way. Jesus' love for the little children was the inspiration behind this song. Jesus loved the little children because of their innocence and because they didn't have the hate for their fellow man as they did when they became adults. The song actually consists of the old world and the new world. The first part of the song refers to the children of the old world. They appear to be so happy because they haven't become influenced by their superiors as of yet. They are like little children playing with each other, whether they be rich or poor, white or black, to a child it makes no difference. And then suddenly they grow up and find that the world is not what they believed it to be. The second part of the song deals with Law Enforcement and says that they think they are God and that God you will find and believe wears a badge. This is a belief from the new world. This looks at loving thy neighbor as sinful and wrong. This looks at hugging a child and showing that you love that child, in the eyes of the law, you are now a pervert. You are a child molester. The whole song deals with mankind becoming corrupt led by government and law enforcement and is very much a part of today's society. As you listen to what this song is saying, think about how far we've come and how backwards in our thinking we are. Just because this song was written over 30 years ago, it actually belongs in this world not the world that was 30 years back. The song points out how greedy and hateful people have become.

Its Still Raining: In the year 1972 I was half owner of a teenybopper place in the city of Marshfield, Wisconsin, which I have recently referred to as SIN CITY. The place was called The Penthouse. It was non alcoholic and featured different bands so the young kids could have a place to come and dance and have a good time. That was our intentions. We were losing money hand over fist because people in that town simply didn't show up to the dances. We decided to give it one more huhrah and we booked Gary Puckett and the original Union Gap. We thought by booking a big name group we could possibly pull this thing out. The night before coming to our establishment Gary played to two crowds of over 1000 people each at Ironwood Michigan and night after his performance at our place he played to two sold out crowds of over 2500 people each performance. At our club we had a total of 243 people for one show. At the door people complained about paying $5.00 a ticket to see this show. Well my cousin and I, who was the other owner, each paid $3700.00 to watch Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. After the show Gary made the statement that he would love to record an album in our place because the acoustics were exceptional. I told Gary that he would have to do that on his own nickel not ours. After all was said and gone, my cousin invited me to join him in a stop at Brown's Bar. I declined. Instead I went up on the stage and sat down at the organ and proceeded to write the song Its Still Raining. Basically the story of a born loser. So now you know the rest of the story. Enjoy!!!