I wrote “My Heartache Tonight” backwards, starting with the chorus - Just a guy alone at a diner counter with a busted-up heart - and built the rest of the tune around that image. It's a 1950s Houston honky-tonk in my mind, with the neon flickering and the jukebox leaking out Bob Wills and heartbreak.
Growing up in upstate New York, I used to catch those AM radio stations from Texas just as the thunderheads rolled in, you'd hear that sweet swing start to cut through the static. It felt like another world calling. This song is a tribute to that feeling: of tuning in to something distant and foreign and yet somehow familiar.
It’s got a two-step beat, a little jazz in the bones, and an excuse to lean hard on some lap steel.
Lyrics
Red hair, green eyes and a dance floor
That sweet little cotton summer dress
I though you were mine
but I can see in your eyes
That you’re just my heartache tonight
Pour me another cup of coffee
So I can face the long drive by myself
I should have recognized
from the look in your eyes
That you’d be my heartache tonight
One more drink and I’ll be going
I said I wouldn’t stay too long
But what can I do,
I’m still in love with you
And the band keeps playing old cheating songs
Pour me another cup of coffee
So I can face the long drive by myself
I should have recognized
from the look in your eyes
That you’d be my heartache tonight
This is my last beer and I’m leaving
I really should’t stay out this long
But what can I do, still in love with you
And the band keeps playing Hank Williams songs
Pour me another cup of coffee
So I can face the long drive by myself
I should have recognized
from the look in your eyes
That you’d be my heartache tonight