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Elizabeth, now and then


A Conversation with Elizabeth Cook (continued)

PM: Since Hardie McGehee co-wrote a lot of This Side of the Moon with you, would you tell us something about him? I don't know anything about him.

EC: Yeah, yeah. The first publishing deal that I was signed to here in Nashville, there was only one other staff writer, and that was Hardie McGehee. And he is an old-school Rolling Stones/Gram Parsons guy from Birmingham, Alabama. He would come up here and write. And he can play any chord in any position on any instrument you can possibly imagine, and can walk in this room and do very credible performances of all this music that I don't know about, plus the music I did know about. So I was able to sit in a room and sing to him melodies and lyrics that he could immediately put in the pocket.

PM: He could voice them in such a way that would really turn you on.

EC: I could look at him and go (singing) "How'd we get on this side of the moon?" And he'd go "Do, do, do"--he'd just immediately have it. So together, we just--it was a very productive writing relationship.

PM: Wow. And so the symbiosis from those early days has persevered and it still goes on today?

EC: No, I think that I'm probably segueing into the next thing now. And I think on the next project, it will be very interesting to see the stylistic evolution of what happens.

PM: Oh, you mean, so not just moved on to other writers, but other music?

EC: Uh-huh. I think one is sort of a function of the other. I mean, I haven't been writing with Hardie in recent days. He's down in Birmingham, he doesn't make his way up to Nashville much anymore. I had lost my publishing deal, I had to go out and get jobs and all, so life just changed. I've been writing more by myself, and an occasional co-write. So it'll be different, I think.

PM: Wow.

EC: But it needs to be.

PM: Yeah. I mean, it's natural, it's evolution.

EC: I think Hardie and I reached a real good stride in a lot of what we did on the This Side of the Moon album. And I'm not sure where we would go from there.

PM: Now, you're married to an extremely talented cat.

EC: Yeah.

PM: Co-writing--is that part of your relationship, or?

EC: Not in the Nashville definition of it, and not in the publishing company definition of it.

PM: [laughs]

EC: He writes things, and sometimes he'll write a song two or three ways, and he'll play it for me, and I'll pick one. And then I come up with hooks in the car, and we write them down. If he comes up with a hook, I'll write it down for him and stick it in his book. So we nurture each other, I feel like, but we don't sit down at the same time and try to go through the creative process together. We sort of feed each other in a different way. We support each other.

PM: It's more like you're part of each other's songs rather than you're both part of the same songs.

EC: Definitely. Very much so. That's a true statement.

PM: Yeah, that's a beautiful take on co-writing that I've not heard before. But it makes so much sense for a musical couple, a talented couple.

EC: Thank you.

PM: And there are other co-writers in the mix, right? Don't you write some with Nanci Griffith, or this person, that person?

EC: Yeah. And it's such a variety of people. I have such a random world that I operate in musically.

PM: Do you like co-writing?

EC: It can be extremely gratifying and beautiful, and it can also be extremely tedious and painful.

PM: Truly. It's a really mixed bag, I find, too.

EC: Yeah.

PM: And once you find some good chemistry, boy, you just hold onto it.

EC: Yeah. And even with that chemistry, if you do hold onto it, you get it in that place where it's about the song, it's not about each other's feelings, it's not about each other's egos, and it's all about this, then you're going to have ups and downs in that relationship, hit strides, hit blocks, argue. I mean, Hardie and I sure did. We were like an old married couple pounding it out over lines and chords.

Or then when you have that initial relationship with someone--or you're just starting out with someone, there's sort of a hierarchy. I'm the new artist, I'm southern, and I'm a woman. So it's all like I'm down, down, down!

[laughter]

EC: Bam, bam, bam.

PM: Thrice removed.

EC: Yeah.  continue

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