"Once In My Life" is a song written loosely in third person but also a letter from me to a long time friend of mine who passed away in a tragic skiing accident. At the time we were laying him to rest right around the day after one of our friends who was in town for the funeral had a near death experience and severely broke her neck. This is where the line "heaven sent me away today, I guess I'm lucky for once in my life, I thought I'd see you once again my friend but I guess it's not my time better start thinking twice" The chorus is all about living in the moment and not taking life for granted. At the end of the day we are lucky and blessed to be alive and should cherish each moment like it's our last because you just never know.

One of the first times I ever played the song live was for the Military on the air craft carrier USS Nimitz…it was just Matt Young and I, acoustic and percussion and you could feel how everyone there just back from Iraq could relate.

The song has been recorded several times in different ways and actually was the song that finally got me a publishing deal as a songwriter with Chrysalis. The music was written with a long time friend and old band mate from Germany Werner Ponikowski. Marlette changed a chord once we went in to lay it down and worked on the arrangement in preproduction. I had borrowed one of John 5's vintage acoustics, layered it with a strat for the rhythm then added the Les Paul in the chorus to thicken things up. The clean tone in the chorus came from a mod amp and a cheap danelectro baritone guitar with a lipstick style pick up…super simple….the reverse swell in the beginning came from Marlette's assistant Sidd Riggs….he was dragging the mouse and backing the track up with the speakers on and it sounded great so we started the song that way.