GORDON KENNEDY times this is just what brings me joy, expressing myself with an instrument, with a lyric. You keep going because you enjoy it. It’ s part of what you feel called to do.
And then, of course, nothing succeeds like success …
Well, yeah. On the heels of the Clapton recording and the Grammys, people suddenly knew who we were. We started getting calls asking if we could write for this artist or that project. One day Dream- Works called. They were working on the animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and they asked me and my co-writers Wayne Kirkpatrick and Tommy Sims to come to a theater in Green Hills to meet their music supervisor, who had flown in from the West Coast. They showed us the film in progress and explained what they needed, which was something for the end title. They also mentioned that every other song in the soundtrack had been written by Bryan Adams.
So, I sat there and enjoyed the movie. It wasn’ t finished, but you could tell what was going on, and I kept hearing these Bryan Adams songs, and I was loving it. I’ m a huge fan. Then at the end, the guy made his speech again:“ We’ re counting on you three to come up with something for this slot.” I raised my hand and asked the obvious question: if Bryan Adams is writing everything else, why isn’ t he right for this slot?“ Well, he hasn’ t come up with something for it yet. So, you three, we’ re counting on you.”
“ THEY PLUGGED ME IN. I PLAYED ABOUT TEN SECONDS, LOOKED AT MY DAD, AND SAID,“ WELL, I GET WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT.”
We went away and wrote I Will Not Be Broken. They loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it— for two weeks. Then they stopped returning our calls. And if we did get through, suddenly nobody knew who we were or what this was regarding. We found out later that if Bryan Adams didn’ t write all the songs for the film, he wasn’ t going to write any of them. We were out as fast as we were in.
But then Bonnie Raitt heard it. We’ d had a single with her off her previous album, and this was going to be the follow-up. She put it out as her first single and invited us to see her show that year. About halfway through, she stopped and said,“ This next song was written by”— and she named the three of us—” some of the greatest songwriters in the world.” Then she said it had been a healing song for her in a year when she had lost her brother and both her parents. And she dedicated it to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
I’ m sitting there thinking: this song wound up exactly where it was supposed to wind up. Forget the cartoon horse! That moment, her voice, that dedication, that room, is something I’ ll never forget. It was another thing we could not have predicted or seen coming.
In the end, Ricky Skaggs said it best. A girl at one of his Q & As asked about her two-year plan,
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