The first verse of “Gonna Be a Time” came to me sometime around 2005, during a day spent with my daughters, thinking about the kind of life advice I hoped to pass on. After that, the song went quiet. It never really disappeared, but it refused to move forward. At the time, I wasn't writing much anyway, so I let it sit, unfinished but not forgotten.

Over the years, Aubrianna and I would occasionally pick it back up. I'd play the verse on guitar, she'd sing along, and I'd tell her, half-promise, half-placeholder, that I'd finish it someday.

Someday, apparently, can take twenty years.

I always heard the song with a female vocal. There was something about the combination of tenderness, frustration, and determination that demanded a voice capable of delivering all three. And as Aubri's voice developed, I naturally imagined that she would eventually be the one to record it. But songs, much like life, don't always follow the arrangements we make for them.

The finished recording features Mari Howard, whose powerful, expressive performance brought the song to life. The vocal needed to move from the intimacy of the verses to the full-throated intensity of the chorus without losing the emotional thread connecting them. Mari delivered exactly that.

Musically, I'd always imagined a smoky, blues-leaning verse that would give way to a harder, more forceful chorus. Something like a slow-burning Fleetwood Mac groove that suddenly breaks into Heart when the refrain hits. Subtlety, followed by a swift kick in the teeth.

To get there, I built the lead guitar tone around Lindsey Buckingham's signature Turner Model 1-C-LB. What I hadn't anticipated was just how much that sound would take over the arrangement.

Originally, I'd planned a minimal introduction, just enough to establish the key and feel before getting out of the way. But once I started layering notes with that guitar tone, the introduction began to grow into something considerably more substantial. It didn't just establish the mood. It claimed the territory.

The same thing happened with the guitar solo. I'd originally envisioned an aggressive, distorted lead over the chorus progression. But the more I worked with the arrangement, the more obvious it became that the song wanted continuity rather than contrast. The solo evolved into a variation on the introduction, allowing that distinctive guitar voice to carry through the recording.

Even the structure refused to cooperate with my original plans. What I thought would be a tidy three-and-a-half-minute song stretched into nearly six minutes. The introduction grew, the instrumental passages developed, and the outro seemed perfectly content to take its time.

At some point, I decided to stop arguing.

For all its musical twists and turns, though, the heart of the song remains where it began: a father thinking about his daughters, the disappointments they'll inevitably encounter, and the strength they'll need to recognize when it's time to walk away from something that no longer deserves them.

I started writing it with the hope that I might have something worthwhile to tell them. Twenty years later, I finally finished telling them. And somewhere along the way, the song became something more than I'd originally imagined.

Perhaps that's the lesson here, too. Sometimes you have to give things time to become what they're supposed to be. And sometimes, when a song starts telling you what it wants to be, it's best not to argue.