The mixing of No One Said It Would Be Easy, as the album was tentatively named, was nearly complete, and so far, I liked what Bob and Ned were doing. I was not as happy with my vocal performances in a number of places—this was nothing new—I was rarely satisfied or felt that I’d gotten a vocal down perfectly. I asked to do some of them over but was told that the record company was digging how they sounded so—no more vocals. I did take a stand on one song and demanded to do it over. “One By One” was inspired by E.E. Cummings’ story, “The Old Man Who Said Why,” in his book, Fairy Tales. When I’d written the song, like most songwriters will admit, I didn't really know what it was about. I'd had an impression, a feeling, and went with it to write the piece of music. It wasn’t until after Tatyana Ita was born that it dawned on me. I’d written it for her.
Now, knowing the source of my lyrics and melody, I felt that I could connect and bring more to my performance. Ned had written the music for all the songs except “One By One” and “I Don’t Wanna Know,” and I argued that since this one was all mine, I had a right to try again. Bob listened to my request and finally agreed to give me a shot.
That evening, Toni came with me to Sundragon and brought Ita. (We called our daughter by her middle name, Ita, until, somewhere in her mid-teens, she decided she wanted to be called by her first name, Tatyana.) I began singing the song and wasn’t quite getting the emotional connection that I’d envisioned, so I stopped and went into the control room to talk about it. Ita was wide awake and looking around in fascination. Then she locked her gaze on me. There was the connection. Now I knew what to do. Toni sensed what was happening and handed her to me. I carried Ita into the vocal booth and sang the song to her while holding her in my arms.
