Hank Cochran – All we did was write part of our lives
I wrote “Don’t Touch Me” in [second wife] Jeannie [Seely]’s dressing room in Rochester, New York; she was working for Porter Wagoner. And I was DRRRUNK. If she hadn’t abeen there to remember it, I don’t know if we’da saved that one or not. And some of them, if I hadn’t gotten down on tape real quick, or get somebody to learn it, teach it to somebody else real quick, you’d forget it or something. But I don’t know, because I don’t really work on a song for a long time. Usually it either comes to me, or it don’t, you know. Just like the Lord tell you, “Here, I’m going to give this to you, or I ain’t.” And if He gives it to you, if I don’t get it, it’s gone. Beg for another chance.
The one thing that I do know that drinking or something does, it’s like, if you recall, just before you go to sleep at night, your head kinda clears up, as you think of all these great things. Is this true with you?
ND: Yup.
HC: It’s true with everybody. It takes that part that’s been building all day, or maybe all your lifetime, it takes that away. And leaves that part of your mind clear — for that, only [laughs]. It’s messed up everything else; you can’t go nowhere else and do anything, but it does do that. It has a tendency to take whatever all that stuff is, if you use it right. Of course none of us do. That’s why I quit drinking. [laughs] The one thing, man, those hangovers, godalmighty.
ND: I heard Whitey Shafer introduce a song, “I met this girl and I thought she’d be good for an album, but all I got was this song out of it”…
HC: [laughs] That’s great!
ND: If you get to a point where you’re not writing very much, will you do something to throw a monkeywrench into your life?
HC: Yeah. And you do that, whether you think you do or not, you do do that. Unconsciously you will do that. I have looked back on things, and, boy, everything was just going fine, and you think, Why in the hell did I do that? You know? And it’s just to stir it up to make your mind working, I guess. I don’t know what it is, man it’s TERRIBLE. I don’t have to do that anymore, thank goodness, I’ve got enough of it, all them things before.
Suzi, my wife, when somebody’s over and wants to write something, she can tell when I’m going to write. She will tell you almost to the hour. She says something just comes over me, it’s almost like I go under a spell or something. So I don’t know. I guess most of the other people don’t notice it because I’ve heard [people] start up to leave, and she’ll say, “If you want to write anything with Hank you’d best stick around, because he goin’ be writing something pretty quick.” You can ask her how she knows, I don’t know.
ND: I don’t understand the idea of co-writing.
HC: I don’t either. Like me and Red. We’ll be together for, hell, sometimes a month, or used to, and never write [but] maybe one song. But it will hit us both pretty close to the same time, or I’ll say, Hey, you know, and we just keep yi-yanging until it hits him too, and then we write something.
But just to say, Hey, tomorrow at 2 o’clock I’ll meet you here and we’ll…right? I haven’t been able to do it yet. I’ve tried a few times, coupla times I’ve filled in a few lines or something, or just happened to be in one of those moods. But usually I got to know the person! For some reason, I got to get that rapport, or feel, or something.
ND: Trust.
HC: Yeah, I guess it is, cuz when you start doing that, you layin’ out, phew [laughs], you layin’ out some heavy stuff that you trying to hide, you know? You being a writer, you know, we’re introverts, just keep it in here, and the only time we really turn it loose is over a piece of paper.