Here are the stories behind the songs on our 19th single of 2025:
THE COVENANT HE WROTE IN STONE
Pardon the pun, but when I first heard "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'" back in the '70s, I was instantly hooked.
Fast forward to the winter of 1979-80, when I joined the Columbia House Record Club. After receiving my initial 13 albums for a dollar, I had to buy nine more at "regular" club prices over the next three years. My first such purchase was also my first eight-track, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show Revisited, which featured selections from the group's first three LPs, from 1972-73.
"Sylvia's Mother" was great, but "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'" was definitely the big drawing card for me. I don't know what's funnier — the lyrics or the vocals. The production was by no means pristine, yet I think it perfectly suited the song.
In the 2010s, ApX bassist Keith Haynie urged me to watch a '73 television clip of Dr. Hook performing it live on The Midnight Speical variety show. I just watched it again on YouTube, and the first comment below it sums things up: "The fact that the band could actually perform at all considering how blasted they were is actually quite impressive.”
I can assure you that all of us were clean and sober when we recorded this parody. Our lyrics are meant to be humorous, too, but they convey a sobering thought: "For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse" (Galatians 3:10a).
I got the idea and title for "The Covenant He Wrote in Stone" on October 26, 2021, and it came out just one week shy of four years later, October 19, 2025.
"The Covenant He Wrote in Stone" features J. Jackson on lead vocals and backing vocals, Tom Tincha on guitars, Rich Mannion on keyboards, Keith Haynie on bass, and Jimmy "Vegas" Tanner on drums and percussion.
I SOUGHT THE LORD
While selecting songs in September 2025 for our next project, I felt a "sudden nudge" to spoof "I Fought the Law" by The Bobby Fuller Four. I'd sung the original in my last secular band back in 1987, not long before I became a born-again Christian. I used to have a cassette of us practicing it, but the performance was less than stellar, and I could be heard afterward saying, "I fought the song, and the song won.”
However, I'm quite pleased with how "I Sought the Lord" turned out. The lyrics are written from the perspective of the Apostle Paul's young protégé Timothy.
Although two Pauline epistles were addressed to him and bear his name, we first encounter Timothy in Acts 16, when Paul comes to Lystra. He's also mentioned later in Acts, plus in Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, and Hebrews. After serving with Paul, he eventually became a pastor in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3).
We later learn that Timothy's grandmother Lois and mother, Eunice, were in the faith before him (2 Timothy 1:5). My own mother was a great cook, but if she made a meal and we didn't compliment her while eating it, she would sometimes say, "Well, I don't hear any oohs and ahhs …”
I bring that up now, because I'm so impressed every time I hear the oohs and ahhs Rich Mannion sang as backing vocalist on this parody. Even in a tune without keyboards, he greatly enRiched the production.
"I Sought the Lord" features J. Jackson on lead vocals, Rich Mannion on backing vocals, Tom Tincha on guitars, Keith Haynie on bass, and Jimmy "Vegas" Tanner on drums and percussion.
