Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.

[guitar music playing] I don't know why you love me I don't know why you care after all the things I've done and times I ain't been there I'm a prize for one night baby for a lifetime I don't know Just cause you seein' somethin' in me doesn't mean I let it show.

I've been so long in the darkness I'd lost my faith in the light but somethin's happenin' here to me tonight.

Long as I'm dreamin' with you I can see what love can do Long as I'm dreamin' with you I can maybe believe it too though it scares me right through baby I'll try it with you.

You know I've had my reasons for everything I've done no matter how good it felt toward myself I was not the one.

Now I ain't saying I'll change my ways.

I just might change my mind.

I'm afraid of the light from your window shines.

I been so long on this highway that all I know is the drive.

Oh baby look what you done to me tonight.

As long as I'm dreaming with you I can see what love can do.

As long as I'm dreamin' with you I can maybe believe it too.

Although it scares me right through.

I'll try it with you.

I don't know why I've been feeling so lonely.

I wanted more than this highway to hold me.

Now somethin's happenin' here to me Baby look what you've done.

As long as I'm dreamin' with you I can see what love can do.

As long as I'm dreaming with you, as long as I'm dreamin' with you, I can maybe believe it to.

My name is Mary Cutrufello and I live in St.Paul.

I've lived in the Twin Cities for about 20 years but I grew up on the east coast in Connecticut and I grew up on Bruce Springsteen and Stephen Sondheim which is a very common thing in that neck of the woods.

in those days but somewhere along the line I discovered country music.

It's not like today where you could just Youtube or Google up a bunch of stuff.

You kind of had to go where things were.

So as soon as I graduated from college I moved to Austin, Texas.

Lived there for a couple years.

Lived in Houston for another seven or eight, spent about a decade in Texas learning how to do.

What you're fixing to hear and also say things like fixing too and then I moved to Minnesota and because I missed the four seasons and it's there's a really cool music scene up here too and so I've been here for basically 20 years and I just I love it here.

So, I like bring a little bit of all of that stuff plus what's brewing up here.

This is a song about one of the greatest singer songwriters ever came out of Texas, made one of my favorite records called Cowboy Nation in 1995.

His name was Chris Wall and he passed away last year so I'm gonna send this out to him.

It's called Loving You Beats All I've Ever Seen.

Well, Colorado City she's a mighty long ways south of Laramie and my pickup truck's been showin' signs of knowin' who to love and when to leave hot fillin' station coffee on the dashboard there's a vision in the steam ooh and lovin' you beats all I've ever seen Well, flyin' in from Denver saw your picture in the Inflight magazine and your name upon a billboard down in Austin as the Out here you're just a sad old whisper half remembered from a dozen dancehall scenes Ooh and lovin' you beats all I've ever seen They turn to me and they say the color of my guitar....instrumental Well I heard that you were tendin' bar in Jackson Hole and waiting' on your dream.

Singin' in a cowboy band to fill the hours and spaces inbetween.

But I thought that I could lend a hand darlin' cause I can still pick that guitar pretty mean.

Ooh and lovin' you beats all I've ever seen.

A cold west Texas morning make me think about the leavin' side of me.

And a week of shows for rodeo is all I know about where you might be.

Colorado City she' a mighty long ways south of Laramie.

Ooh yeah lovin' you beats all I've ever seen Ooh lovin' you beats all I've ever seen I started performing my music in high school not from a musical family just in the school stage band and then I had like a "band played at the school talent show which was like once a year.

I took the best horn players from the stage band and we did like 25 or Six to Four and we did like Sledgehammer because it was 1986.

You know and that was, I mean it was great but it wasn't really until I got to college it connected with me that working musicians have to come from somewhere.

Somebody has to be them, you know, it just seems so remote for me but it's like well it probably seemed remote to everybody else that, you know, didn't have music around their house but that's no reason not to do it and no reason not to feel like you can't do it.

if you leave if you go there's just one thing I want you to know You'll be outside me for the rest of my life I won't apologize and I won't think twice baby I still love you forever it's like I told you I would, I would I still love you forever just like I told you, just like I told you I would well I can cry and I can run but I can't change the things that I've done I cursed darkness in this heart that I own I light a candle just in case you ever wanna come home I still love you forever just like I told you I would, I would yeah I still love you forever just like I told you, just like I told you I would I would well you know I would just like I told you like I told you I would just like I told you baby...oh, oh I still love you forever just like I told you baby Just like I told you just like I told you I would I've always written songs about other people or just random people made up out of whole cloth in a lot of cases and maybe because I started when I was nine and I didn't really have much to write about except like what was my mom making for dinner and like even at nine I knew nobody wanted to hear that song.

But partly coming from listening, growing up on Springsteen, growing up on Broadway where you know you suspend disbelief in that world and that was a big part of what I listened to growing up and so I was never afraid of that, of just you know creating a world, creating a character while they live in a world.

It doesn't have to be my neighborhood.

I mean there's a handful of songs I guess that incorporate things that I've experienced and also to the extent that I try to speak to the human condition, while i'm human too.

So there's that.

But it's not journal entries.

It's not reportage.

It's you know, it's it's not that.

I know other folks write that way.

That's not part of my process.

There's lyrics first people and there's music first people and like Springsteen is sounds like he would be a lyrics first person.

He's actually a music first person which kind of blew my mind when I found that out because, you know, we our songs kind of end up in the same place a lot of the time.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter where you started as long as you end up someplace that makes a song that people want to hear.

For me personally I like either a title or a first line.

One or the other or both will suggest a character like a person and once I've got that I don't necessarily get out my notebook.

I'm just like I just gotta sometimes a lot of times I'll just sit with that for a while.

I go well who's who is this person?

Why are they in this song?

What decision are they going to have to or what trouble am I going to put them through.

You know what decisions are they gonna have to make in the song and how is it gonna turn out.

So, you kind of have to figure out who the person is before you can answer those questions.

For me once I've got that sort of stuff in my head then like the technical or the craft part of writing songs is something that I've done for a long time and like that's not where the challenge is, the challenge is defining the person in the song and making them as memorable and as real and as identifiable as I can.

You know, somebody who has something up in their life that people can relate to.

They don't always make decisions that I would make god knows, but still it's like somebody you met at the bar or a friend of yours or a friend of your friends and it's just like yeah no I know people that do exactly what that guy did in that song.

The song about second chances It's called Rescue You I know you're down-hearted babe I've been down-hearted too Seems like we're asking for a miracle just to find the will to make it through Now I can't hold your darkness I can't crush it in my hand But I can give you all the love I got The place to make your stand to understand by me Baby stand by You rescue me for a moment I'll rescue you for a while Well now I've wandered through these winters and drank my summers all alone I've known the boys are every high where you learn what all the faithless know After years of chasing aces I still don't know what is real The only thing I trust in now is the way you make me feel you want to stand by me baby stand by You rescue me for a moment I'll rescue you for a while Well I moved here to Minnesota after spending 10 years in Texas playing country music and country inflected Americana roots rock.

I was fortunate enough to have a record on a big label and tour all over the country and we'd always run through Minnesota on like whenever we got within shouting distance and I always met cool people who could play and I felt like I'd, you know, I'd spent at that point a third of my life in Texas and I'd made the points that I wanted to make and I'd learned the things that I wanted to learn and I kind of wanted to see what it looked like from somewhere else but at that point of my career I couldn't just move anywhere.

You know, I had to move someone with musical infrastructure and by that I don't just mean like music business attorneys, I mean like people who can play and venues that want that, you know, and I think sometimes folks might take that for granted a little bit but it doesn't happen everywhere.

But every time I came through most of the Twin Cities at that at that time I just I was like man this, there's a ton of people who can play here and you know mostly I think it was because of Prince who you had to be able to play to play in his band but he also went through band members.

So, there's a lot of ex-Prince guys down in the Cities and like that's not my style of music but the rising tide like raises all boats.

So even like the Americana guys are great the roots rock guys.

Everybody can play because that's just the vibe down there.

So I said well I can live here, you know, I can do work here.

I can do good work here and plus we have four seasons which after living in Texas for ten years and seven of them in Houston I was, I thought well there's that's ten winners I'll never get back but I can, you know, I can start.

I live in St. Paul now but I spent ten years in Texas and in the Twin Cities 35E means St. Paul but down to Texas 35E means Dallas and people out in Texas like to write songs about Texas which was weird to me when I moved there but I said well I better get with the program.

So, this is an old song of mine.

It's the first song I ever wrote that name checks a place in Texas.

It's about the the other 35Es.

So, It's called By the Time You Get to Dallas I'll Be Gone One, two, three.... By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone There won't be no crawlin' back there'll be no hangin' on By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone Well, you called me from a pay phone and I knew just where you were Somewhere down in Austin with that guitar-playin' girl And told your lies and I just smiled I said I missed you so But I won't be waitin' up when you get home By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone There won't be no crawlin' back there'll be no hangin' on By the time you get to Dallas I'll be gone Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.