02 / THE STORY
Before there was an album, a Storybook or a JRH film, there was a quiet house after a date, Elvis on television and one question I couldn’t shake.
In Episode One of Life Between the Lyrics, I tell the true story of the three late-night hours that became “Round & Round”—and the moment wanting to write songs finally became writing one.
A NOTE FROM RICHARD
The distance between wanting and beginning.
I spent a long time saying I wanted to write songs. Wanting was easy. It asked nothing of me and risked nothing. That night, something changed. A song on television gave a name to what I was feeling, and for once I did not let the feeling pass.
I opened the laptop.
The date mattered. Elvis mattered. But the part I remember most clearly is the three hours afterward. I kept working until the words finally sounded true. I did not know where the song would lead. I only knew I had written the thing I had been waiting years to write.
That is what “Round & Round” gave me before anyone else ever heard it: proof that the distance between wanting to begin and beginning can be one honest night.
If you would like to hear more stories like this, join me on the Back Porch. We’ve got a lot more stories to tell.
And truly—thank you for listening.
RICHARD HICKS / JRH
Read the complete episode transcript
“Round & Round” started late one night—with a date, Elvis Presley and a question I couldn’t get out of my head.
I had just gotten home from the date, and I wasn’t ready to go to sleep.
So I turned on Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special.
Then he started singing “Baby, What You Want Me to Do.”
And I remember sitting there thinking—
That’s it.
That is exactly how I feel right now.
It was the question underneath the song that caught me.
When somebody gets inside your head, every thought seems to circle right back to them.
Eventually, all you can do is be honest and ask—
You’ve got me… so what do you want to do now?
I opened my laptop and started writing.
Three hours later, I finally had lyrics I was happy with.
I had always wanted to write songs. I guess I just never had the right reason to sit down and actually do it.
Turns out, I didn’t need more time.
I needed the right motivation.
One date. Elvis on television. And a question I couldn’t shake.
That became “Round & Round.”
If you’d like to hear more stories like this, join me on the Back Porch.
We’ve got a lot more stories to tell.
And truly—
thank you for listening.