Along the way, I formed a band with my best friends and we managed to make the corner tavern. When that fell apart my attention turned to original music. Basically I couldn't do anything else. I did not want to join any hair metal bands nor oldie country acts although in hindsight I'd be a bit well known and perhaps legendary. So basically I took the road less traveled.
The journey of life is heard in the albums and songs although they might have been a bit crude and unpolished, these albums are my life diaries. I fell in love or in infatuation with so many women so many times that I was blinded by movies of happy ever after couples. Problem was I never picked the right ones and those who came and gone, I would never have the chance to find them ever again. That one in a million girl in my P.R. class in junior college was seen only one time at Kitty's bar and once she left the place, she would committed for the ages and never again we would meet. I was duped into thinking that the thin as a stick honors cheerleader that was in my history class years ago, along with her fat liberal thinking girlfriend that maybe that thin as a stick honors cheerleader was the one that got away. That turned out to be a lost cause. Or getting back together twice with the other high school sweetheart in the 90s, which didn't work either. Took me years to realize you have to move forward and not look back at the past. For the past is that and there's no way you could ever return back to those forgotten days to make nice or get a second chance. In the end, there are two types of people in life, there are those who cannot live without somebody in their lives for better or for worse, and then there's us who have come to conclude that we're better off alone. And life doesn't end when love is over. At least not yet.
When me and Isabella split up, I decided that from here on out I was on my own and there was nobody out there that could change my mind. To this day I really don't know if she was serious about some of her actions, it rather pointless to bring them up but I really did my best to try to cheer her up, to try to convince her that life is worth living and that if you have a guy that loves you, he'll support you. I guess she took that to heart, she's still married to that dude she claimed they were separated. And she's still alive, and she keeps busy on Facebook. Perhaps she did get clean but one look at her FB and she still remains the crazy woman everybody told me to stay away from. I don't hate her, like the rest I still love her in a way and the best song that describes this whole disaster with her was something called I Miss You. It's perhaps the most heartfelt breakup song that I ever done. I have no idea how the chorus came to be, but I think part of it was inspired by My Heart Will Go On, that odious crappy song that Celine Dion sings. But I think it sums up when I said this fond farewell to Miss Isabella Marks And ever if we never cross paths again, my love will go on...LONG AFTER YOU'RE GONE.
Amazingly, The Road Less Traveled is perhaps the album that doesn't go deep into the breakup with anybody, that for the first time in history, this record doesn't rely on past breakups nor welcome the new woman into my life. There wasn't any and with a clear conscience most of the songs took shape. A lot of the songs do go back to the 1992 Art Deco sessions with I Always Wanted To Be With You and Back Again, the latter song one of all time favorites despite me being a step off on one of the lines. The guitar playing the riffs over and over I enjoy a lot. Walls, really goes back to 1983 and was written but not recorded for Love Sucks. I co wrote it with the late Ron Glarington, and while we toyed with the song back then, we couldn't find the right sound to record that song. Another Highway, might have been done for Postcards From The Edge. Wonderful Love was a summary of failed love and I think most of that came from the last time Isabella and me were together. That may have been the part of Emotional Baggage came in, when I sang that part I might have been looking at her picture as we recorded it.
Met Her At The Pawnshop aka Pawnshop Girl was a true story. I was in the old Mister Money pawnshop in Ames when this woman came in and we talked a bit, she was bitching about not being able to find somebody as she pawned a few things off to buy some smokes. I don't recall much of our chat but she did mentioned that there's no such thing as soul mates and those who think there are, are full of shit. Tavern Town, was inspired by Webb Wilder's Human Cannonball although you don't hear it in the music but I think that came into play when I was up at The Horseless Carriage (now Wrigleyville in Marion Iowa) and they were playing the new country hat acts and we were referencing Willie, Waylon and Buck rather than Garth. Looking back upon that now, Garth is a lot better than the crap that is country, the Locash, The FGL, Cole Swindell, Brantley Gilbert. Believe me it would get much worse than it was back in 2002. But one of the key lines is something that rings true today; even in a crowded barroom you can still be all alone. And I still do feel that way even when I participate in jam sessions in town. Two months into that, and I still don't know anybody well. What's Not To Love is a rip off REM's Monster album and that bizarre delay on I Don't Sleep I Dream. The line 6 amp had a delay that I could repeat that riff over and over and it would keep a straight beat throughout the song. All Geoff had to do is follow it. And he did a fine job.
The album took a month to do. We started it on January 14, 2002 and finished it on Valentine's Day (a year after Russ and Deb got married and four years removed from Clarice). And basically we got the same production and recording lineup that gave us Drive In Blues. Brian Mullahan, on a chance meeting said he wanted to work with me again and so we put aside our differences. As we finished everything up, Brian had some prior commitments to do and there was enough tape left to do a couple more, so Geoff Redding and I finished up the album by doing three songs, Where It Leads, Past Times Behind and Let The Train Roll On. I guess you can call them filler songs but I love the easy going groove and the Brown Eyed Girl type arrangement of Where It Leads, the odd ball guitar riff to Past Times Behind (with a line 99 percent of people are not with their first love, what does that say, quoted from Willie Nelson) and Let The Train Roll On, complete with a tag riff I think was stolen from Petticoat Junction. Remembrance Wind, was another let's all go back to the past song but I think we wanted to do with acoustic guitars to make it sound bluegrass but that wasn't meant to be. I left the drums off that one. Finally, I decided to close the album with a remake of Social Distortion Sometimes I Do. We attempted to do it back in 1992 for Drive In Blues and I didn't like the end result. This one a bit more akin the Mike Ness and a slower beat. I think it was better to have the backing vocals way in the back to give it a more personal sound.
We chose 14 songs to make it a viable single album but I did put up a deluxe edition to which two bonus cuts were added. One was Teri, a song that perhaps I should have included it. I love this version to the point that when we put together a outtakes album Observations From The Forefront this got included and made into a single. Basically it started out as a warm up song to the album, which is why it sounds a bit rough but Geoff had the right feel while playing it. The other song was It's All Over, a song that was done twice back in the 1990s, a rejected version for Nice Weather We're Having and again on Drive In Blues where I tagged the ending of All Over Now to see if it would work better. It did not.
The Road Less Traveled is one of my favorite Townedgers album and I think I like it the best since I left most of the emotional baggage off this one unlike the last couple of albums. It really does sound polished and thanks to the tireless efforts of Hugh McConnell and Richard Dennanbaugh they worked overtime to get it right. They had to. Somehow the masters got destroyed, the drums are hardly audible so whatever remains on the master disc, we'll have to go with it. This record is the best of how the Townedgers sound and although later in the decade the critics would like the newer releases better, I'll go to my grave calling The Road Less Traveled our ultimate album. It's somewhat a bittersweet album, it would be the last that I worked on with Brian Mullahan, from here on out, we really would be on our own, especially after his passing a couple years later. It's an underrated classic and it is one of my five all time favorite Townedgers albums. I'll leave you to guess the other four.
The Songs:
Another Highway (R.Smith) 4:17
Wonderful Love (R.Smith) 3:50
I Always Wanted To Be With You (R.Smith) 4:05
Walls (Smith/Orbit/Glarington) 4:25
What's Not To Love (Smith/Redding/Orbit/McClelland) 4:47
Tavern Town (Smith/Orbit) 4:27
I Miss You (R.Smith) 4:30
It's All Over (Smith/Orbit) 4:20*
Teri My Love (Smith/Redding) 4:55*
Remembrance Wind (Smith/Maier) 3:45
Back Again (R.Smith) 3:45
Met Her At The Pawnshop (Smith/Orbit/Redding) 3:53
Where It Leads (Smith/Redding) 2:20
Past Times Behind (Smith/Redding) 3:43
Let The Train Roll On (R.Smith) 3:00
Sometimes I Do (Mike Ness-Rebel Waltz/Sony ATV (ASCAP)) 3:53
*Bonus tracks on deluxe edition
Words: Rodney Smith, Music: where credited (C) 2002 Townedger Music Emporium
Band: Rodney Smith, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland, Jack Orbit, Johnathon Maier
Recorded at Smith Brothers Studios, Springville Ia (Jan 14-Feb 14, 2002)
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh with Hugh McConnell
Assisted by Miles Delancey and Rodney Smith
Mixed by Hugh McConnell and Martin Daniels at Studio 66, Fillmore Ia
Produced by Rodney Smith and Brian Mullahan
(Past Times Behind, Let The Train Roll On) Produced by Rodney Smith and Geoff Redding
Released as Radio Maierburg RMR 25169 The Road Less Traveled On March 3, 2002
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