“That’s one of the first songs I heard on that AM radio station that really hit me,” he recalls. “That was part of my training – the bittersweet romance, being in love, being heartbroken. That was the music that helped shape that.”Playlist’s ultimate challenge, needless to say, was coming up with a couple of new songs that fit the album’s richly textured mood. “That was a difficult task – like, okay, now you’re going to add two songs of your own and compete with these?” Edmonds says. “But I’m lucky. I feel that I wrote two songs that can stand with everything else. They fit right in.”There’s no question that “Not Going Nowhere” will touch the heart of anyone who has had to reassure his or her children that divorce won’t mean a separation between parent and child. For Edmonds, whose amicable split from his wife Tracey was national news awhile back, the song came directly from real life.
“I played the chords one day, and those words just flowed out like a conversation,” Edmonds says. “It’s part of a conversation that both Tracey and I had with our kids. We told them that we’re still the best of friends, and that nothing was going to change. We wanted to make them feel secure.”
And “The Soldier Song,” too, grew out of a parent-child relationship after Edmonds visited a friend whose son had served in Iraq.
“It brought it close to home, to see that connection,” he says. “Regardless of what your politics are, when these kids go over there, they believe that they are fighting for us. And they die for us. Whether the war is right or wrong, from their hearts, they’re fighting to make us safe. So we should remember them and respect them.”
In conclusion, Edmonds says that Playlist “is one of my favorite records that I’ve done. What’s cool is that it’s familiar, but it’s fresh.
"I want people to hear something they know as if they’re hearing it for the first time. And I hope a lot of people really care for it, because I would love to do more – and pull out more of my favorite memories.”