By 1977, Linda Ronstadt released her third consecutive million-selling release with her seventh album, Hasten Down the Wind. Named after a track from Warren Zevon‘s 1976 eponymous debut, Hasten Down the Wind went to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and earned Ronstadt a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.
For the album, Ronstadt covered the 1961 Willie Nelson-penned Patsy Cline hit, “Crazy,” and Buddy Holly‘s “That’ll Be the Day,” and also co-wrote two songs, including the apologetic Spanish ballad “Lo Siento Mi Vida” (“I’m Sorry My Love”), co-written with her father Gilbert.
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“Try Me Again”
Ronstadt’s second writing credit is a ballad based on a real-life breakup that she started writing one night after her pulling her car over to the side of the road. “I broke up with this guy and was driving around, and then talked to my friends and got all bummed out,” Ronstadt told Creem magazine in 1984. “The next day, it just came to me in my car, and I just pulled over and wrote it on the back of a parking ticket. It came by itself; I had never written a song before, and the whole song came out, minus two lines. And I went home and got out my pencil, and I thought, I’m gonna finish this tonight, ’cause I was so excited I’d written a song.”
She continued, “And I couldn’t write the other two lines. The next day, I wasn’t even thinking about it, and I got in the car, and boy, the two lines came as soon as I got on the freeway. They just appeared. I shouldn’t have sold that car. I’ve never written one since.”
The song was co-written with Andrew Gold, who had his own top 40 hits in the late ’70s, including “Lonely Boy” (1977) and later with the 1985 theme song for the TV comedy The Golden Girls, “Thank You for Being a Friend.”
Gold first met Ronstadt during the 1960s when her band, the Stone Poneys, played at his high school. He later formed Bryndle with Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards, before the two later joined Ronstadt’s solo band. Both played on Ronstadt’s 1974 album Heart Like a Wheel, including on her hit “You’re No Good,” and on her next two albums, Prisoner in Disguise (1975) and Hasten Down the Wind. Edwards continued as a longtime collaborator and bassist for Ronstadt through the early ’90s.
Lyrically, “Try Me Again” pleads with a lover to take her back again.
Well, I drove past your house last night
And I looked in the window
Lately, I ain’t been feeling right
And I don’t know the cure, no
Still, I can’t keep from wondering
If I still figure in your life
Could you take me back and try me
Try me again
Could you try me again
I drove around in this lonesome town
Felt just like a beginner
Friends, I saw they just brought me down
They’re so cynical and bitter
Well, I guess I’m just like them now
I never thought I’d turn out like that
Could you take me back and try me
Try me again
Could you try me again
“I think it’s the best album we’ve made,” said Ronstadt of Hasten Down the Wind. “It has more of me in it than anything I’ve done.”
Photo: Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images
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