There Ain't No Easy Way

About this time Saturday night, if I'm not in the hospital with whatever my poor boss had last week, my desperately music-addicted self will be seated at the Kent Stage taking in one of America's most talented, most recorded, and most overlooked songwriters, Darrell Scott.

Dixie Chicks? He probably wrote it. Garth Brooks? Probably a Darrell Scott song that saved his ass. More than 50 of Scott's songs have been recorded and performed by top recording artists, most of whom I can't stand. But, I love Darrell. He is a stellar recording artist in his own right, with a powerful, riveting voice. He has a kind of quiet, been-through-hell strength. His songs are straight-shooting wonders, some lovely and plaintive, others just flat-out butt-kicking doses of reality.

His dad, Wayne, release his own first album last year to fairly wide critical acclaim. They played the last set of the evening together at last year's IBMA Fan Fest in Nashville, but as IBMA sometimes stands for "I been mostly awake," my little boy and I just couldn't tough it out. I'm sorry I missed that.

I enjoy this bluesy song, with a story that I'm coming to appreciate more and more. It's from Real Time, an album essentially recorded in Darrell's garage with that other guy I like so well. Before there was iTunes, I bought a stack of these and gave them away because the now-defunct Howdy Skies label -- a brave attempt by Tim and his wife to free themselves and others from the talons of The Big Labels -- had only pressed so many. But if you go to Darrell's site you can hit the ol' iTunes button and be singing along before you know it.

There Ain't No Easy Way
written by Darrell Scott & Tim O'Brien, Howdie Skies Records, 1999

Won't you listen to my story, I gotta a tale to tell it's
About a man who gets caught somewhere between heaven and hell
Yea the man's in anguish I guess you could say
There ain't no easy way

Well when I was young boy I learned to play the guitar
It was me and old Jim Beam down at the local bar
Yea I lost my childhood but I earned me a trade
Now there ain't no easy way

I found me a woman I gave her heart and soul
I nearly lost my mind thru it all yeah she took control
She gave me a baby child then she took it away
There ain't no easy way

I prayed to the father to the moon and the sun
I prayed to anyone or anything that could get the job done
I hear different voices but the words are the same
There ain't no easy way

I went to this doctor to see what my trouble might be
And I was looking at the bottom of his shoe while he was looking at me
We sat there in silence but what I wanted to say, I wanted to say
Was there ain’t no easy way

When it's all over and by my grave you stand
Try to think of something good to say
About this no good man
Please do me a favor won't you write on my grave
There ain't no easy way