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Naturally, these are all big hits, either recorded by Mac himself or written for others: these include "In the Ghetto," "Memories," "Whoever Finds This, I Love You," "I Believe in Music," "Watching Scotty Grow," "Something's Burning," "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me," "One Hell of a Woman," "Stop and Smell the Roses," "Rock N Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)," and "It's Hard to Be Humble." The 12 songs exclusive to Hard to Be Humble showcase Mac Davis at his poppiest, finding space for the hits "If You Add All the Love in the World," "Burning Thing," and "Music in My Life," and generally choosing to showcase him at his slickest, sweetest crowd-pleasing best. At 23 tracks, it's one song longer than the Hux collection and, of these 23 songs, 10 are shared with Hard to Be Humble. “The song has the devastating feel of inevitability to it, as if the fate thatīefalls the young man in the song cannot be altered.Released nearly simultaneously with Hux's 2013 set Hard to Be Humble: The Best of Mac Davis, Raven's 2013 compilation A Little More Action Please: The Anthology 1970-1985 is very similar in some ways to its companion set and very different in others. The more we canĭraw attention to it, the more likelihood that somebody can find a solution.” I just thought it was drawingĪttention to a problem that’s been around for a millennium. Theyīelieved it was a story of a protest song. The Colonel didn’t want Elvis to record it because it was controversial. I didn’t know that it was important, but I just knew that it was a hit if the right person cut it.” “When I had finished the last line, I knew that I had written a hit. Back then we had gangs and violence in a few cities, now we have it in

Dying is a metaphor for being born into failure.īeing born into a situation where you have no hope. Being born andĭying and being replaced by another child in the same situation is basically Mac Davis, “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me.”įather leaves and he ends up acting out and becoming his father. Messing around with it after he left, and I just went “In the ghetto.” Office that I had there on Sunset Boulevard and was showing me a guitar lick.įor some reason or another I had to learn it. Though we weren’t wealthy or anything, it was a whole big step up from the way Was wondering why they had to live that way and I lived another way. Understand how these kids could run around barefoot on all that broken glass I They had dirt streets and broken glass everywhere. Smitty Junior lived in a part of Lubbock called The word was used during the Holocaust to describe those situations, but they hadn’t used it in an American context until the late ‘60s. The term “ghetto” had started to become popular to describe the urban slums. They lived in a really funky dirt street ghetto. Our daddies would be working, and in the summertime, Smitty would hang out with me. He was a black man and his little boy, Smitty Junior, was my age, and he and I used to play together. There was a guy named Alan Smith that had worked for him for years and years. MAC DAVIS: My daddy was a small building contractor. He told the story of “In The Ghetto” in our pages. Its origins speak to the actuality of being a songwriter: it had the working title “Vicious Circle” but he realized it was hard to rhyme ‘circle,’ and changed it. “In The Ghetto” remains his most famous song. He spoke to us for awhile, and then went to talk to some other new friends. He said “I know a little something about songwriting.” He was in no rush to move on, either. It was like meeting the mayor of Songtown. He heard our song talk and came over to join us.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard a gentle voice say, “You guys songwriters?” It was Mac. Of course we spoke about songwriting, and music, and all of it. the great Beverly Hills deli, having lunch with two good friends, both songwriters and recording artists. A couple years back, I was at Nate & Al’s. I had a great Mac encounter I’ll never forget. Although he wrote “Hard To Be Humble,” he was a genuinely humble, down to earth guy. He was beloved in the songwriter community for many reasons, not only because he was a great songwriter, but also cause he was a great guy. The great Mac Davis, songwriter of “In The Ghetto,” “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me” and countless other classics, died yesterday September 29, 2020.