Luck or Something Like It: A Memoir by Kenny Rogers

Author:Kenny Rogers [Rogers, Kenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429
ISBN: 9780062071811
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2012-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

You lay the blame on me

And I the blame on you.

Why do we keep finding fault

With everything we do?

How long can we keep right and wrong

So cut and dry?

And who picks up the pieces

Every time two fools collide?

You have no idea how great that felt. Here were two people who had never met before, knew nothing about each other’s personal lives, and yet were about to sing a song that wasn’t actually written as a duet. But it was a perfect duet: each of us could understand the pain of the couple from our own perspective and experience.

My session was put on hold for the night so we could finish the song. This was less like doing a song than sharing an experience with a new friend.

I want to tell you the history of that song, because it is a good story—and I love hearing about how songs come about. “Every Time Two Fools Collide” was written by Jan Dyer and Jeff Tweel and was one of those accidental cowrites, where luck or magic shows up and takes charge. Jan was working as a secretary at United Artists Publishing, typing up song contracts and handling general office duties. But like so many people with day jobs in Nashville, Jan was also a songwriter. On one particular day when a lot of the company writers were standing around in the office, someone knocked over a little cactus plant on Jan’s desk, spilling dirt all over the contracts and lyrics Jan had just finished.

“See what happens”—she laughed, looking at Jeff Tweel—“when two fools collide?”

It was a line of Jan’s that she had used for years, but somehow she hadn’t used it in a room filled with songwriters. Jan remembers a hush coming over the room, the same kind of hush that happens when a hook line is spoken. You could hear a pin drop as the writers snapped to attention. Every writer glanced at the next one, but Jeff spoke first.

“That is Jan’s and mine!” Jeff announced. The other writers moaned and wandered back to their desks. Jan and Jeff worked on the song all that afternoon and evening, then polished it up and took it to UA’s publisher, Jimmy Gilmer. Jimmy, in turn, took it to Larry Butler.

Can you imagine? A cactus gets knocked over and gives Dottie West and me a No. 1 hit!

Dottie and I went on in that post-“Lucille” period to have several huge records: “What Are We Doin’ in Love?,” written by Randy Goodrum; “All I Ever Need Is You,” written by Jimmy Holiday and Eddie Reeves; and “Anyone Who Isn’t Me Tonight,” written by Julie Didier and Casey Kelly. Along with our buddies the Oak Ridge Boys, we did—for three years in a row—the highest-grossing tours in the music business.

Dottie and I just had this great connection. Part of it might have been that we were both raised in a poor family and yearned for something more. Dottie was raised in Tennessee, the oldest of ten kids.

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