We’re proud to premiere the music video for this warmly affecting song.
Please don’t misunderstand: Singer-songwriter Ira Dean isn’t complaining about how life has been going for him.
As a member of the dynamic country music trio Trick Pony, he co-wrote some of their most memorable songs, including “Pour Me,” “On a Mission,” and “Just What I Do.” He also has recorded with such greats as Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Alison Krauss, Darius Rucker, Emmy Lou Harris, Mel Tillis, Jamey Johnson, Blake Shelton and many more.
Branching out as a collaborator, he has written or co-written songs for Ronnie Dunn, Rascal Flatts, Joe Nichols, Chris Young, Trace Adkins, Colt Ford, Heidi Newfield, Jake Owen, Gary Allan, Aaron Lewis and Montgomery Gentry. He launched a solo career in 2015, and has a new album titled I Got Roads — featuring John Osborne, Vince Gil, Ronnie Dunn, Gretchen Wilson — set for release later this year.
“I ain’t sitting here wishing life had turned out different for me,” Dean insists on the first single from his forthcoming album. “I’m just missin’ how it used to be.”
In the warmly sentimental new video for that song — titled, naturally, “Missin’ How It Used to Be — all it takes is for Dean to view a sweetly supportive voicemail message from his late mom to set him off on a series of nostalgic flashbacks, recalling family, friends, and simpler times. “Ain’t saying I want to go back there,” he sings. “Ain’t like I don’t love what I have have here.”
But… Well, take another look at the title of the song.
And take a listen to the lyrics. Dean looks at life from both sides, then and now, remembering a time when “it took hard work and Jesus to get what you needed, and a quarter to make a call.” But never forgetting the happier moments. Or his mom.
“My mom was the most amazing woman on the planet,” Dean told C&I. “She raised five of us by herself, worked two jobs, and never had a drivers license. After mom and dad got divorced, she would walk me down to Dairy Queen and would read my homework out loud the whole way, explaining what I needed to know.
“I can’t tell you just how much I miss those times growing up in a town where you said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and played outside with your friends all evening, and the only rule was to be home when the streetlights came on.
“I wrote this song with my friend Dave Turnbull shortly after my mom passed away. I can’t tell you all the memories that came flooding back during this write, or how hard it was holding back the tears. But I hope it paints the picture of my life growing up, my Neil Diamond- and Elvis- loving mom, and how much I miss them.”