Mike: "Faithful" - it's not one of your favorite songs, is it?

Randy: No, it's not necessarily, on a musical level, but it is one of my favorite in that it was the only song that I actually co-wrote with the late great Mark Heard. And Mark is someone who I would name among the top 50 poets and songwriters of the century. Quite often I knew, in working with him, that I was in the presence of greatness. And I would tell him that, and he would play things or he'd come up with lyrics. And I would turn to him and I would say, "Mark, this is just amazing. This is great, and I want you to know that I love you, and I love working with you!" And I remember sitting down one day, in the middle of that project Till We Have Wings, and saying, "You know, Mark, I know what I want to say in this lyric about being a young man and lying on the front lawn and watching the clouds and the sky, and knowing there's something more to life than meets the eye. I knew that, even as a little kid. I couldn't name it, but I just don't know how to say it with a lyric. I'm just kind of log jammed here." And he just looked at me, like the wise old owl, through his round John Lennon glasses. And he sat down on this broken down garden furniture outside this mobile recording truck where we worked quite often, and he said, "Well man, just keep it simple - that's the key. So why don't you say this, 'When I was a boy, I opened my eye, and I went yeah, yeah.'" And then I came up with the next line, and he came up with the next line. And we just went line through line, and we blew down the whole lyric in 30 minutes, and then I went in and sang it.

Mike: And then Mark got all the musicians to play stupider.

Randy: Oh, yes, that's right. Well, we were trying to be team players with the record company, and Christian radio in America can be pretty linear conservative. And we knew, if they found it too dark, too acoustic oriented, they might shy away from it because to them, they want happier sounds, they want brighter, more tinkly kind of bells and whistles. And we thought, "Well, look, lets try to find the line here between something that fits in the record, and something that radio can embrace." And he actually did that. It was so funny; we went in during the rhythm tracking, you know, with the bass and the drums. And if the drummer got too cool, he'd actually push the top button and say, "No David, play stupider." And then we'd all laugh and he'd play something simpler. And you know, it's funny 'cause it turned out to be a big radio hit. And I applaud him for just stretching, and being a diplomat - showing the record company that he could do that without feeling, you know, like a prostitute. But you know, too, the funny thing about Mark is that I said, "I'll split with the writer royalties and the publishing royalties - right down the middle with you 'cause that's fair." And he said, "Ok, but do this in the credits on the record. Don't put my name in English. Put, let's see, Giovanni Audiori." And he said, "Well, it's Italian for John Heard." He said, "My real name is John Mark Heard, so I'll get the royalty checks, but just put my name in Italian." You know, 'cause he wasn't really thrilled with the song; it just cracked me up. I went, "Man, you are such a weird monkey!" But you've got to love him.

You will find the rest of Mike Rimmer's interview with Randy Stonehill at this website

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