dandelion woman album launch experience
day 3

Welcome back! Today, we’re featuring JSB’s anthem to the Midwestern woman, and hidden somewhere on this page is Joe streaking. Today’s feature song is track #3:

midwest girl

Why is this, you ask? Good question. If you’ve listened to “Feel Like Me” before, you might’ve noticed that in the chorus, I sing “I’ll find a Midwest Girl, who can handle the cold.” I used to play this song for my buddies, ya know, around bonfires and stuff. My friend Jack’s wife, Nikole, started requesting “Feel Like Me” all the time. But she never called the song by it’s proper name. She always said, “Play that Midwest Girl song!” And that got me thinkin…

(Feel Like Me is on our Crow Creek CD, but will also be featured on the B-Side of the Dandelion Woman VINYL!)

When I was in kindergarten, we had them carpet squares that they used to have us take naps on. This girl named Tiffany wandered up to me one day on my carpet square and told me (not asked, but told me) that I was her boyfriend. Well, that was almost 3 decades ago, and I’ve been a sucker for a Midwest Girl ever since…

…come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever dated any girl who’s lived anywhere but the Midwest…but we digress…

…So anyways, once Nikole started erroneously requesting “that Midwest Girl” song, I thought to myself, “Self, everyone sings about Southern girls, California girls, Texas girls. The Midwest Girl needs her own song!”

At the time, I was playin’ with a group of fellers, we called ourselves ‘Joe Stamm & the 26ers’ - consisted of Danny Haley, Brad Haley, Dave McMullen & Clay Shawhan. I told ‘em about my idea for a Midwest Girl song and one night, I went over to Danny’s house (he’s the drummer over there in that photo) and we commenced to drinkin’ beers and trying to figure out how to write the rest of the song. So far, I had come up with “Dip, spin, strip it down, twirl, Damn, I love a Midwest Girl.” And I pretty much had the melody figured out in my head. But that was all I had. So Danny and I sat there, drank a bunch of Busch Lights and tried puzzlin’ it out…

Well, we didn’t end up keeping a single lyric out of that writing session. The only one I can remember is Danny saying “button smile” at one point. I still don’t know what a button smile is, but I didn’t give up on the song. Shortly thereafter, I must’ve sat down with a more clear head and scribbled out lyrics that remain today. Regardless, I owe those boys a debt of gratitude. They all contributed to helping arrange that song once it was written, and as soon as we started playing it out, folks just loved it.

Some five years later, it’s still a crowd favorite.

Oh! And remember that thing I was telling you about how there weren’t no songs about Midwest Girls, but there was all kinds of songs about Southern Girls and whatnot?…

…Tim McGraw didn’t release his song “Southern Girl.”

You can have your kettle balls and Southern girls, Tim.

(DISCLAIMER: In truth, I have nothing against Southern girls, or folks from any other regions. We love our fans from all over this good Earth!)

anyways, the time’s come when i give you today’s song for free!

For a Free, high quality WAV file download of the song, Midwest Girl, just hit the Add to Cart button and use the discount code MWGIRL at check out.

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