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Greg Trooper: 'Make It Through This World'
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Sadness permeates Greg Trooper's new album, though he says it wasn't planned that way.
"I always try to write a song that, no matter how sad it might be, I try to leave room for hope at the end," he tells Melissa Block.
But on Make It Through This World, Trooper's seventh album, there are a couple of songs "that don't really have any doors out, which even surprised me."
One, the aptly titled, "Sad, Sad Girl," features these lyrics: She's a sad, sad girl/Was it always so/Did her heart start that low/Did she always believe/Love always deceives/Was it always so…
On this CD, Trooper teamed up with producer Dan Penn, a legendary figure from the world of southern soul and the fabled Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. As they were listening to the song "Lonesome For You Now," Trooper said he was singing flat on one of the lines. "You're not singing flat," Penn replied. "You're just on the sad side of the note."
Trooper says he thinks fondly of Penn's comment every time he performs the tune -- or when he thinks he's singing flat.
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