My song, TEN TO ONE has a bit of a spotty history, one that changes, I’m sure, depending on who is recounting it.  Well, my blog, my truth…

For me, it’s like the entire Fleetwood Mac “Rumors” record all in one song.  It’s credited to three of us but it actually passed through six sets of hands-four actually, just two of us twice.  And it precipitated a break up, a divorce of sorts. Actually, a series of break ups and divorces.  And the tension of which can be felt (at least by me) in every note.

It started with Jerry Dieterich. He said to me, “Why don’t you write a song about how no sin is greater than another?” He kept hounding me (and I thought it was a dumb idea) so to shut him down I said, “Why don’t YOU?” He said, “Alright I will!”

And he did. Well he jotted down some ideas and told lyricist Naomi Jensen about it. Then she worked on it and gave it to her husband Larry, a guitar player, to set it to music.  He was busy with other stuff and in her impatience she showed me what she had written.

And I liked it!  “Which sin closes heaven? Is it three or five or seven?” really spoke to me in a Ten Commandments sorta way and I immediately came up with a tune and took the song that I wanted nothing to do with away from those who had worked so hard on it.

Well, at least I gave them credit. And I’ve never stopped telling this story even if it puts me in a less than admirable light.

Subsequently, Larry has written music to a decidedly different version of the song and I closed BURN IN HELL with it and supposedly everyone was fine. Save for the fact that this group has disbanded without much clarity of all that went down.

Like I said, much like RUMORS, tension was boiling under the surface and it came out in this clever little song about how we should not be judging others’ sins greater than our own.

Isn’t it ironic, don’tcha think?

I guess the moral of the story is… Actually I’ve never found one. Jerry got his song written. Naomi got most of the praise because of the clever lyrics. I got most of the blame for being a spoiled brat. Larry never really wanted to write the music until I did. And he and Naomi like their version better. So I guess we all inspired each other to do something outside of our comfort zone that was actually kinda cool.

Not Fleetwood Mac cool, maybe, but cool nonetheless.