Behind the Music: Can't Live Here

"She said she could live here, she could live there,
she could live just about anywhere. Said theres just one thing she can’t do...
I can’t live here with you."

It seems like much longer, but about half a year ago I wrote this little tune about a lady that ran away from me. Just weeks, days before she took her curtain call she would beg me to find her a place to live. She wanted to move out, she wanted me there. So I thought.

I wanted to write a simple country tune. Something like Hank Williams would write. No so much "Your Cheating Heart," but something just as clever.

We would drive down the road and she would point out places she could live. Dumpsters, storage units, garbage cans, even cardboard boxes. I thought it would be an homage to the one who could live anywhere, apparently, to not be able to live with me.

"She said she could live in a box in Central Park,
with her little dog Hammy, she taught not to bark... <- Hammy is our future French Bulldog At all the tourist and the passerbys, Hamurabi
wondering why this girl likes to live outside.
She’d always been cooped up like a chicken in a pen,
after the last guy, she swore off men. <- I was the last guy
She said she’d be happier on her own,
wherever she brings her cat she calls her home. <- Her Chad-man is all she needs.

She said she could live here, she could live there,
she could live just about anywhere.
Said theres just one thing she can’t do...
I can’t live here with you.

She said she could live under a tree in the Northwest,
a big old pine, the kind she liked best.
She’d spend her nights out underneath the stars,
not wondering if I’m out at some seedy bar. <- I spent a lot of time at the bars
She’d have all the space to stretch her legs,
running in the hills, swimming in the lakes.
Spend her days just happy as a clam,
never thinking twice about where I am. < - She seemed not to give a crap.

She said she could live here, she could live there,
she could live just about anywhere.
Said theres just one thing she can’t do...
I can’t live here with you.

She said she could live in her car,
see the country, near or far.
Get out on that open road,
turn the heat up high if it gets too cold.
City after city, mile after mile,
Seeing the real world, in her own style.
I’m sitting, singing, wondering where you are,
probably out somewhere in your car.

She said she could live here, she could live there,
she could live just about anywhere.
Said theres just one thing she can’t do...
I can’t live here with you."