Texas Songwriter Tradition is in Good Hands with William Clark Green
Julie Wenger Watson
Posted On August 29, 2015
If you’re looking for the future of Texas songwriters, you’ll find it in young William Clark Green. This 29-year-old is all about his craft, and it shows in his clever, often wicked, lyrics. Green sings the words we wish we could say. Take Green’s single “Sympathy”, co-written with his buddy Brad Tursi. Don’t let this rollicking, country tune lull you into thinking it’s another sweet love song. It’s a smug revenge anthem for anyone who’s ever been cheated on, and you’ll love it.
“It’s a big middle finger, and that’s what we do,” Green laughed when I asked him about the song.
For Green, a song needs to have conviction and meaning. “A song has to mean something to me,” he explained. “Any time there’s emotion in the lyrics, like bittersweetness, or jealously, or rage, or happiness, or love, it has to mean something to me. I have to have some kind of feeling. And so those songs like ‘Sympathy’, it’s an F-you feeling.”
And while Green does this extremely well, one of the coolest cuts off his latest release, Ringling Road, is actually a quirky, wonderfully creepy ode to the weird side of the circus. This title cut, written with Ross Cooper and Randall Clay (who happens to be a former circus roustabout), is a masterful marriage of words and music. Ironically, it barely made the record.
“Well, the song has traveled a long way,” Green noted. “It almost got cut from the record two times, once in preproduction and once in the studio. It just wasn’t coming together right. In my heart, in my mind, I had to record it.”
Green knew the song had potential, but he just couldn’t find the right sound for the slightly twisted lyrics. Eventually John Deaderick, who was hired to play keys on the album, came up with a drum groove. “As soon as we figured it out, it was game over,” Green recalled.
The song that was almost left in the studio has been a hit with Green’s fans. “Even when we recorded it, we knew we liked it, but we didn’t have any idea it would be the biggest song on the record, and it’s not even a radio single. It’s just been amazing to see,” Green commented. “It also speaks volumes to the scene we’re in that they’ve accepted a song that’s obtuse like that…It’s really cool to have a scene and a fan base embrace it.” Check out the weird and the wonderful in Green’s brand new video below.
