I will be the first to admit that without this song, there might not have been the others. Ironically it was the very first thing I ever had recorded after we moved to Nashville. More ironic, perhaps, is how prophetic the words to this song have become by virtue of circumstance, not some grand design on my part at the time of their creation. What has happened since then could have been no more anticipated than it could be re-created. My one brush with being right was pure chance, as it were.

I met the gentleman who cut it at an open-mic songwriter’s show at Douglas Corner. Garth and Sandy had moved from Oklahoma about the same time Jaymi and I came up from Georgia. We were both doing whatever we could to stay in Nashville, trying to get our songs heard by anybody. The only folks listening, however, were other songwriters as no one else was usually at our shows. And so it was at one of those nights at The Bluebird Café, Garth heard this one and swore if he ever got a record deal, he was going to do it. Well, he did, and he did. I will always be grateful that it was a songwriter who made this one his own. The song was doubly blessed because it was also produced by a songwriter, Allen Reynolds.

One little-known fact about this song is that it originally had another set of lyrics which, by grace, never saw the light of day. Thankfully, these lyrics were lost in one of our moves and haven’t resurfaced! The melody is the same as it was, but the words that finally stuck were inspired by a scene from the movie Peggy Sue Got Married. Kathleen Turner discovers she can’t alter one aspect of her past without affecting the rest. No one gets to pick their memories, thankfully.

I am humbled by letters I have received since this song was released—letters from mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children who found something worthwhile in the message of The Dance.

- Tony