Take It From Me

“Take It From Me” is a Pat Killough (now Rogers), Rock Killough, Ken Beal and Randy “Shiney” Moon song written in 1982 when I lived in Nashville. It’s one of, if not the only one, 4 writer song I’ve been a part of. Been part of a lot of 3 writer songs, but not 4 writers.

I believe this is the only version of the song ever recorded and was recorded in Nashville at Tree International Publishing’s in-house Studio A. We were fortunate to have some great musicians playing and singing on our demos recorded at Tree.

Billy Earl McClelland played all the guitar parts, Eddie Bayers played drums, the late Michael Rhodes played bass (He was a beast on bass and a good person, too.) and Mitch Humphries played piano (also, gone way too early). Rock sang the song and Mitch, Ken and I did the background vocals.

If you’re interested in how I ended up in Nashville and how Pat and I ended up writing together, please read the longer description for the “Heartaches” video on this YouTube channel.

I think I had the music and the “take it from me” idea and Pat and I fleshed out the verses and then, I think, we got Rock and Ken to help with the bridge, but I could be wrong on all of that. I mean, it’s been 42 years, so do you really think I should remember? Not a chance. I’m doing good if I remember last week, sometimes yesterday. Apparently, neither Pat, Rock or Ken remember either as none of them had any comments for this description. I think they had pretty much forgotten about it. As, I say, 42 years is a long time. (Although Rock did say, after he heard it, he remembered the song and it was a hot track.)

One thing I do remember, is that Michael Rhodes came by one day to our house on Belmont and asked about using the song for a bank commercial he was doing. I told him fine, but I don’t think it ever happened. I never heard anymore about it.

I always liked the song and would have loved to play it in one of the bands I played in, but the piano part Mitch played was way beyond me. And, even if I could have learned it, I don’t think I would have been able to sing and play it at the same time.

Hope y’all like it.

Thanks to Yaroslav Shuraev for the thumbnail photograph.

Thanks to Sultan Chang for the video from Pixabay and Yaroslav Shuraev (8) for the videos from Pexels.