Story Behind The Song: Glen Campbell - "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"

See how Glen co-wrote the final song of his career with his friend and producer Julian Raymond and learn more about the Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated track.

Alzheimer's is often talked about as a tough disease to deal with (for both those afflicted and their family members, particularly their family members), but nobody's ever been able to put into words and music the way one's going to deal with it, in an honest, bare-your-soul kind of way.

Until now.

Afflicted with the disease himself, Glen Campbell co-wrote "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" with friend and producer Julian Raymond. Raymond would take notes from Glen's own sayings about the situation, the things that are in the lyrics of the song. Things like "You're not gonna miss me anyway," "you're the last face I will recall" and so forth. The comments were very much Glen and very much glen's sense of humor. What Raymond then crafted was a poignant, honest look into Alzheimer's with a little wry, humor in it.

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me documentary filmmaker James Keach describes the song as "Dramatically, I thought this was one of the most poignant, powerful songs I ever heard."

Keach continues, "It's a Love song. It's got the comedy of Glen, but at the same time, it's got the truth of what he's oing through and the demise he is facing. Lyrics so often don't go dark and deep in this way. And yet, he didn't feel it was dark, he felt it was more 'Don't worry about me. I'm going to be OK."

When recording the song, Glen Campbell could only perform a couple of lines at a time but he wanted to finish the song.

"I'm Not Gonna Miss You" is featured in Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me and the accompanying soundtrack set to be released February 17, 2015. It already has won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Country Song and is a finalist for Best Original Song at the 2015 Academy Awards (The Oscars) set to air February 22, 2015. Tim McGraw is set to perform the single on the telecast.

 

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