Visiting Day

Just briefly, 'Visiting Day' is about my golden retriever, Sadie. And, I don’t know all of you with dogs out there, but when you give them a little scrap of meat from the dinner table, you know after the meal... their ears kinda bend back to their heads and they give you that kinda, sad-eyed look. And that’s where the lyric “orphan’s eyes on visiting day” came from. Also, in the last verse… is about my Goddaughter Haley Caradine from Oxford, MS. 'Visiting Day' took about 15 years to write, it’s gone through about 100 different lyrical changes, and 50 different musical changes. Jimmy came up with a new riff, that we were playing with in the studio and I just started singing 'Visiting Day' over this great new riff that Jimmy brought in, and so the song really took on a whole new life, and it is now a Widespread Panic song ala Jimmy Herring, so, very excited about the new version, and that’s pretty much it...

-Jojo Hermann http://bit.ly/1CJPIo1 (Relix Podcast)

There’s one thing that I really want to talk about, which is Willie Stargell. He was the left fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He just died. We did a lyric tonight about Willie Stargell. In 'Visiting Day' we did a line, "little chicken on the hill with Will." I remember growing up when Willie Stargell would hit a home run, he would donate thousands of chickens to the community around the poor areas of Pittsburgh. Bob Prince, who was the announcer, every time Willie hit a homerun would say, "Let’s have a little chicken on the hill with Will." That was a big part of my childhood and we put it in "Visiting Day" tonight. We just sat on the bus just now and we needed a few lines. We were like, "Hey, let’s sing about Willie Stargell." Willie Stargell was just an incredible human being. I went up and asked for his autograph when I was like 8 years old and he said to me, "Why do you want my autograph? You should be asking your father for his autograph. You should be asking your doctor for his autograph." He was just such a righteous individual. So tonight, we did a little tribute to Willie Stargell. I think there might have been one person from Pittsburgh who will get it. One 40-year old person in Pittsburgh will understand what the "little chicken on the hill with Will" means. But, it felt good. Willie Stargell was an incredible human being.

-Jojo Hermann http://bit.ly/1z5tP07 (Jambands.com)

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