When I tell this story, I think most people who hear it believe there’s no way that it’s true. Looking back on it, I am the lucky one, for sure.
In the fall of 2002, I was done. I was tired of having a broken heart, tired of the game, tired of opening up myself only to be rejected and left alone. And I was getting pretty good at it. I’d found a way to make it on my own. Then, one night, I walked up the stairs at the Baptist Student Union building like I had done a few hundred times by my junior year. This time, I turned and saw a girl that I didn’t recognize and I was pretty sure I had never seen before. She had long, dark black hair, tan skin – she was beautiful. I probably did a triple take. She was also wearing a “Caedmon’s Call” shirt. They were only my favorite band. I said a prayer to the Lord in that moment – Lord, if there’s any way that girl could be mine, please let it be so.
To make transitioning into the campus ministry easier for freshmen, our small group Bible studies (called Family Groups) had specific dorms assigned to them. Rather than worrying about picking a group to go to, we found it easier for folks who were new to campus and to our campus ministry to just have an assigned group to join. Mary was a sophomore, but she had not been a part of the BSU her freshman year. So, she joined Red Family since it was the one her dorm was assigned to. Red Family just so happened to be the group I had joined at the end of the previous spring semester.
I sat in our weekly Bible studies and watched in wonder. Mary was quiet, had a nice smile, but she knew the Scriptures. I could tell she was an engaged believer. Did I mention how beautiful she was? I was smitten, but I was also very afraid of trying again. I struck up conversations and tried to flirt whenever I could, but it took me until November to work up the courage to ask her out. I did some homework and asked some of the girls who knew her well about things she liked. Mary recounts that I said “the pack was too strong” that night at our Family Group to ask her out in person – her friends were all around her. So, I called her dorm room after Bible study that Wednesday night instead and asked her if she had anything going on Friday night. She asked her roommate Amy if they had any plans. She would later tell me she thought I was organizing something for the Family Group. She had no clue I was calling to ask her out on a date.
She accepted, and I picked her up to go to dinner on Friday. My homework revealed that she liked Cracker Barrel. So, that’s where we ate dinner. My homework also revealed that she liked puzzles. Here was the genius of my plan! After dinner, we went to Wal-Mart in Christiansburg and picked out a puzzle to buy. I think it was either 500 or 1,000 pieces – enough pieces that I knew there was no way we’d finish the puzzle that night. Since she was really into puzzles, I figured it would guarantee a second date – if for no other reason than her insatiable desire to finish the puzzle! We went back to my apartment and spent a couple of hours talking, getting to know each other, and working on the puzzle. I don’t think the conversation really ended. It was just getting late. I drove her back to her dorm, and we said good night. We both knew that another date was in the offing.
The hopeless romantic was falling in love. The cynic thought it was too good to be true. This song captures both sides. I don’t know how to say this without sounding completely prideful and arrogant, but here it goes – I think this is a great song. 21 years later, I consider it one of the best songs I’ve ever written. It says everything I wanted to say. The imagery and phrasing is spot-on. The melody is pretty and flows so easily. I play this song in almost every show I perform because I still love it. It’s a good song, but I love it too because it tells the story of the love of my life. I was lucky that I didn’t end up with just one foot in the door.
James Taylor’s October Road record came out in the summer of 2002. It was his first album since Hourglass in 1997. I started diving into James Taylor’s music in high school, and I downloaded as much of his material as I could off of Napster after I got to college. October Road entranced me. James was like a fine wine to me – he was getting better with age. The writing on October Road still blows me away to this day. In preparation for this post, I went back and listened to the album in its entirety again. My feelings remain the same. The back half of the One Foot In The Door record was my attempt to write and play like James Taylor, and it started with the title track. The opening progression is a meager attempt at a walking fingerstyle riff that JT employs on his title track “October Road”.
In 2016, I recorded every song I’d ever written for Mary. She had heard most of them, but there were some that she hadn’t that served as a nice gift for her. I had re-recorded “One Foot In The Door” a few years earlier when I got my first USB interface and started tinkering with home recording. The thing that always bothered me about the album version was my acoustic guitar. The Takamine just never sounded great. When I got my rosewood back and sides Taylor 410, the penultimate fingerstyle body and wood, “One Foot In The Door” finally sounded the way I wanted it to. I’ve included the newer version with this post. It incorporates some slight modifications to the intro and outro riffs that developed over time as I played the song live as well as the hit and hold in the final verse. Let me know what you think about the story and the new recording of “One Foot In The Door”!
