Big songwriting. A few sentences, short and straightforward like Hemingway’s – and you’re all there with him. In the storyteller Tracy Lawrence.
Although “Used To The Pain” serves typical country clichés – loneliness, highways, lost love – the track written by Mark Nesler and Tony Martin gets to one’s heart. With “Six a.m., alarm goes off. I reach where you no langer lay, but don’t feel quite as lost”, the song starts, “everyday, I drive my truck. A little farther into work before your memory catches up.” That’s what distinguishes Country: Storytelling. Stories for the man from the street. Nothing out of the ordinary, but understandable, credible and: emotional. Lawrence recorded this song for his 2005 best-of album “Then & Now: The Hits Collection”. At a time when his star, which had risen in the early 90s, had long since returned to the ground of facts. In Nashville it’s still quite a big number. But the times when he became a serious opponent of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson with hits like “Alibis”, “Sticks And Stones” and “Texas Tornado” are long gone. However, the singer with the nasal Resi melted voice hasn’t lost his talent for soulful country, which is completely set in retro sound – as “Used To The Pain” impressively proves. Nevertheless: More than a 35th place in the US Country Charts didn’t jump out for the wonderful track.
