NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Skip Ewing and MCA Records have released a single that in all likelihood will wind up a standard for country radio during the Christmas season.
'It Wasn't His Child' was written from the point of view of Joseph after the birth of Jesus and it is one of the best new songs of the season to come out in years in country music.
'The first verse goes: 'He was her man/She was his wife/And late one winter night he knelt by her as she gave birth/But it wasn't his child.'
It is not being marketed as a single since it was shipped to radio stations only. It is on Ewing's new album 'The Will To Love,' which is not a Christmas album.
'I originally started with the melody,' Ewing said. 'The way the acoustic guitar starts off was just a melody in my head. It was Christmas Eve when I was messing with it. I thought it would be neat to write a Christmas song. It's not something I do a lot of.
'I started thinking what could I say that's different than what somebody else has already said. I thought, gosh, the way everything happened like that I wonder how those people must have felt. I actually finished it on Christmas Day.
'My whole family was in my grandmother's living room around the piano singing Christmas carols. I was in my cousin's room with my hands over my ears trying to hear myself think.
'As a writer I'm always looking for some way to say something differently. That allows me to express whatever emotion is inside of me. It was a real way to say that. It's more than maybe about Mary and Joseph.'
Ewing said many country music stations play songs like that during the Christmas season.
But the song's popularity may go beyond that.
'You wouldn't believe the amount of people who have come up at my concerts and asked me to play that song.'
Sawyer Brown, another country music group, also released the record some time ago and it got some air play, Ewing said.
Ewing says a lot of people knew that he had written 'It Wasn't His Child,' and his fans wanted him to put it on an album.
'So instead of waiting for a Christmas album, I put it out on a regular album because it is something that can be played any time of the year. It doesn't say anything about Christmas even though that's the story it's about. It may not be a single that can go in rotation on a regular basis.'
Ewing's bridge to country stardom was his writing.
His first song recorded was 'One Hell Of A Song,' by George Jones. That was followed by others picked up by George Strait and Charley Pride.
'The record labels started hearing my voice on demo tapes that major artists were cutting and they started taking it seriously. More than one said, 'We think you can do something vocally on a record.' They asked, 'What do you think about doing an album?' And I said that's what I always wanted to do.
'Music, playing the guitar, writing and singing are all self expression for me. I feel that's what it's all about -- emotions, honesty and realness.
'If I'm writing my own music and I sing it, it allows me to be as close to my music as I can get and that's genuine to me. If I find a song that I really believe in and it's me, then I'll record it whether I wrote it or not,' Ewing said.
'I would like to think if I can write all my music and have success that would be genuine to me. Some of the people who come to my concerts don't know that I wrote all the music. It seems to be important to them. If they realize that Skip Ewing is the kind of person who has emotions and feelings and if I can be a person, that means they take me seriously and that I am an artist. That's wonderful.'
Ewing thinks his writing talent will never dry up.
'I hope to hold on to the attitude that I've always got something to learn. I think that's positive. If I can hold on to that I don't ever think it's going to dry up. Somebody's going to teach me, whether a friend or something I see. I am yet to be a father. Maybe that will teach me a lot of stuff.'
adv fri nov.
