Jason Ringenberg – We will always be on that road trying to get there

III. I REMEMBER NORMAN ROCKWELL AMERICA

ND: As you said, family songs are a big part of the album. Let’s talk about “For Addie Rose”.

JR: That’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever done. I wrote that for my daughter, period. It rolled out in one day. I’m so glad people are getting it. Sometimes those kinds of songs are so corny. But people are saying this song is the best one on the record. I think that’s because I wasn’t trying to write a song for the record. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again. If I wrote a song for Camille or Kelsey, I’d be more aware of what I was doing.

ND: I take it that “A Pocketful Of Soul” was written for your wife.

JR: “A Pocketful Of Soul” was written for Suzy. It’s very literal. Suzy is a really special person. So many people love her. So what I tried to do with that song wasn’t to write a love song from me to Suzy. What I wanted to do was write a love song from the people who love Suzy to Suzy. There’s a lot of lines in there that I got from other people. And some of them are from me. I don’t think I know anybody who has more friends and is a better friend to people.

ND: “Merry Christmas My Darling” is another family song, only it’s not about your life. Still, it comes from the perspective of a father with a family.

JR: Actually, I wrote that song years ago, in ’83. It’s an old thing I’ve wanted to record for years. I tried to picture myself in the early 1960s, before the changes of the ’60s and ’70s. There’s the images of the jacket hung by the sewing machine, the rifle, the fishing pole. At the same time this guy is stuck in Vietnam in a prison camp. A lot of soldiers went to Vietnam who weren’t drafted who thought they were fighting for the old Norman Rockwell vision of America. They thought they were fighting communism. In that respect, they were doing a noble thing.

Whether that was what they were doing or not is not the question. From their point of view, it was a real honorable thing. So the guy in this prison cell is remembering the life he left behind. He’s remembering these beautiful things: Snow in the lane, grandma’s cooking, grandpa whistling — Christmas in rural America at the time. I wrote it at a time that I was losing the sort of innocence that I brought into the world, and I was remembering all that stuff — not as a Vietnam soldier, of course. But I remember Norman Rockwell America.

IV. THE REST OF US HAVE TO WORK AT IT ALL THE TIME

ND: “Under Your Command” is as directly a spiritual song as you’ve done.

JR: That’s just pure, good ol’ gospel with a modern twist. In a way, I was conjuring Todd Snider. I wrote with him a little in those days. So, yeah, that song is really spiritual. But I wanted it to have a modern kick in the lyrics. I wanted it to be from a person like me. I’m not as perfect as I’d like to be, and that song is about the imperfection that a lot of us have. I know some saints, but I don’t know too many.

ND: The line about lighting a truer fuse sounds like it came from someplace real.

JR: I think that’s real appropriate to what a lot of musicians face. The line in there about the hotel Bible, I think a lot of musicians relate to that, too. They’re in a hotel and have nothing to do for five hours. You’re separated from your family, everything is unreal, and all of sudden here’s this Bible. I wonder how many musicians have turned to the Lord because of that little Gideon’s Bible? I really wonder that. How many have been on the road and found solace in that, in the saving grace of the Bible? It’s a cool thing.