Can't Stop the Sun from Going Down. I'm very proud of this one. It was the first time I'd
ever had an invitation to write a song for someone else. It was an invitation to write
a song for Joe Cocker. And he was near the end of his life. And there were some instructions,
couldn't be a lot of words in it. There were different things. And I'd never had an invitation.
I always thought you had to write the song and then pitch the song. And then maybe if somebody
ever heard it, they'd want to record it. In this case, with this song, I had gotten the assignment
and I'd said, oh yeah, I'll definitely give a shot at this. I went out onto my back porch. I'll
never forget this. And I had come up with the chorus. Boy, you can't stop the sun from going
down. It's what I wanted Joe Cocker to tell me. I would imagine he would sound a little bit like
the wisdom of a dad or a granddad, like giving you the truth. And it would also have that weird
face he makes when he sings. And my daughter was young. She's like six. She came outside on the
back porch.
Like a never ending ballerina person at that time. She was just spinning all the time. And she said,
what are you doing, dad? And I was like, oh, I'm writing a song. She's like, well, what's it about?
And I thought, well, I can't tell her. I don't want to spend time explaining Joe Cocker. And I
said, well, all I've got is this. And I sang it for her. You can't stop the sun from going down.
I was like, and it's, I'm just trying to imagine things that you can't stop. And she looked at me
and she's spinning around and she kind of stopped and planted her feet. And she was like, you mean
like a leaf falling from a tree? And I was like,
yeah, exactly like that. And then she spun around and then stopped herself again. Looks like she's,
you know, like you can't stop your shadow from following you. And I was like, dear Lord,
like I'm gonna have to cut this girl in on my song. I said, you know what? And I could tell
what I had been doing is I hadn't been paying attention to her and that's what she wanted.
So I put the guitar down. I said, hey, maybe we should go for a walk, you know, because I was,
I was at the time learning to be a single dad. So we just sort of set off from the porch and went,
took a loop.
around the block in Atlanta. And the whole time we were just sort of kicking around ideas of what
those different things were. And I came back and wrote the song. I had most of it done. And I had
a writing appointment next couple of days with a guy named Monty Powell. And Monty came in and he
goes, you got anything, you know, that's not finished, that's close or something I can help
you with? I was like, yeah, this thing I'm writing for Joe Cocker, but I think my daughter wrote the
* out of the song, you know? And I played it for him. I said, I got this one line I wish would
go in it. That's like, you can't stop Romeo from hanging around. That's what a guy would say. You
just, that one dude who just won't give up on you is always going to be around, isn't it? And it's
another piece of advice. And he sort of put this, he's like, you can't stop, you and Picasso painting
the town. And I was like, wow, you're a songwriter. Like you're a real, like, holy smokes. And we
finished the song right then. And I kept it around for a long time. Joe passed away, didn't get to
sing the song.
I always honored it for like the innocence of my daughter and how clearly a six-year-old
mind can outright a 40-year-old career artist in seconds because you asked the right question
because they know the right answers. So, you know, this song belongs to everyone except me.