One more and I’m gonna go. Isn’t that what the Stones say on "Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!"?

It’s just that I heard this song on X Country today, right after "Back To Jackson" in fact, and I just fired it up, as I was reconciling my iTunes database, and it sounded so good I wanted to TELL YOU!

I spent three years in college getting drunk.

Well, I wasn’t inebriated 24/7. But by the time my career ended, seemingly six days a week I was down at the local bar. Hell, the night of my graduation the proprietor grabbed me by the elbow to give me a personal goodbye. And one good thing about getting drunk as opposed to getting high on dope is you don’t retreat into yourself, you want to go where the people are, you want to integrate, you’re positively CONVIVIAL!

Oh, you’re pouring down the Molson’s. Maybe a bit of Jack. Even a flaming Drambuie to show the uninitiated you’re a pro. And the alcohol means nothing without music. Music is the grease, that insures you have a good night.

And the music we played in college did not consist of what was on the Top Forty. Hell, in Middlebury, Vermont you couldn’t get any Top Forty! We played rock. With an element of rootsiness.

If it was Saturday night, the first shot was always taken with "Brown Sugar". But there was also Van Morrison’s "Domino". We wanted music to fuel the fire. Pat Green’s "Wrapped" fuels the fire.

If you like your music sans video. If your idea of a good time is going to the club, getting liquored up and cutting loose…"Wrapped" is good for you.

The music plays, you start losing your inhibitions, you talk to the opposite sex, you’re your best self…AT LEAST YOU THINK YOU ARE!

I don’t want to go back to college. I don’t want to have to study for the test, write all those papers, be in a hothouse with everybody trying to get somewhere yet frustrated they haven’t been set free yet. But the feeling of having my whole life in front of me…I’d like to have that back. Before I saw the shenanigans the politicians and the businessmen play, before I realized you’re lucky if you can do ONE good thing in this life.

You get older and you’ve had so many losses, you’ve got so many aches and pains, that it’s hard to believe. And everybody winning at the game of life wants to keep you down in the hole…if you tell them they’re full of shit they chide you for not believing in their religion…MONEY!

That’s what’s freaking the major labels out. And LiveNation too. They don’t give a shit about music. Rapino and his boys just want to cash out at the end. Doug Morris and his posse just want the gravy train to continue. And they’ll say and do ANYTHING to insure this. Meanwhile, you’re left scratching your head, wondering how come you know everything’s shite and they don’t.

I flew Virgin America last weekend. And I’m gonna take one of their planes again, because as we pulled away from the gate, the pilot got on the intercom and said we were gonna be in San Francisco in an hour and he wasn’t gonna say anything more because we’d heard it all and he didn’t want to bore us. God, how come Richard Branson knows that truth sells and no one else does?

And Saturday night I found myself under the Half Moon Bay stars with a bunch of people I’d never met before, but what we had in common, what kept us together, what allowed us to communicate, was THE SONGS PLAYING OVER THE STEREO!

The girls were dancing up a storm. The boys weren’t jockeying for position, but speaking of passion. John told me about his trip to the Andes, riding horses at 18,000 feet. And when I saw the pictures on his computer they resonated, not because of the exotica so much as the tunes streaming out of the speakers.

These weren’t flavor of the moment, but classics. Everyone from Bowie to Carlos to even Jimmy and Robert. Yup, on this night even STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN sounded good!

And Pat Green’s "Wrapped" puts me in the same mood I was last Saturday night. One that has me believing it’s SO FUCKING GREAT TO BE ALIVE! That life is full of POSSIBILITIES! And that’s why I love it so, that’s why I’m writing this.

When I listen to Pat Green I want to meet everybody, I want to hang out with everybody. I don’t want to hold back. I want to be my real self. Compassionate, yet irreverent. Not worried about what you think, knowing that the real me is enough. That’s what music’ll do for you.

Unfortunately, you can’t hear "Wrapped". I couldn’t find it anywhere online. Not on MySpace, not on YouTube. Oh, I found some live takes, and they’re interesting, but the sound quality isn’t good enough, and you’re missing the mandolin and the soaring guitars. The vocal is right, but the studio track is JUST RIGHT!

I can see sitting in the bar, raising my longneck to the ceiling, then letting the beer pour down my gullet as my buddies cheer me on.

There’s nothing wrong with the music. There’s something wrong with the selling of music, the DISTRIBUTION! The issue isn’t getting paid so much as getting people to HEAR IT! This one song makes me a Pat Green believer. I’d like to make you a believer too. But someone’s convinced Pat to keep his music locked up. So, he’s beating himself up on the road, with one hand tied behind his back. His fans need the tools, to spread the word.

I want to spread the word. I want to tell you "Wrapped" is magical. That it sounds nothing like what you hear on Top Forty, not even the Nashville stations. It sounds like MUSIC!

You remember music. Written and played by people who just HAVE to make it. Not for fame or riches, but because they need to express themselves. This is the nugget, this is the key. Make this music, and if you’ve got it, people will beat a path to your door.