"Live Until I Die" | ||||
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Single by Clay Walker | ||||
from the album Clay Walker | ||||
B-side | "Silence Speaks for Itself" | |||
Released | October 21, 1993 | |||
Format | CD Single | |||
Recorded | 1993 | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 2:50 | |||
Label | Giant | |||
Songwriter(s) | Clay Walker | |||
Producer(s) | James Stroud | |||
Clay Walker singles chronology | ||||
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"Live Until I Die" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Clay Walker. It was released in October 1993 as the second single from his self-titled debut album. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.
Walker revealed in American Cowboy that his grandmother became the inspiration for the song. After building her a house to live in and after she moved in Walker became inspired to write the song. Walker also stated in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, "My grandpa, who was her husband, is really who started all this off. He used to be a singer, Ernest Elbert Walker, `the Blues Man.' He played on a local radio station. He taught my dad and my uncle, and my dad and my uncle taught me.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times Walker said, "I grew up in a rural area. My grandmother had an 84-acre tract of land outside the city limits. We had a farm with lots of animals. It was different than growing up downtown, where you might be riding a bicycle in the street and stuff like that. The part in 'Live Until I Die' where I talk about muddy roads and muddy feet--well, I walked those muddy roads. That song is very dear to me, in fact. It's like autobiography. I think everybody has one point in his life when he's a child or a teen-ager that he wishes he could go back to, and that's mine. Those memories are very fond memories to me."
During an interview with the San Angelo Standard-Times Walker said, “I wrote a song, ‘Live Until I Die,’ — it's about my life. We literally lived off the land, raised our own livestock, we hunted — there were very few things that were store-bought on our table. I learned accountability and responsibility early on in life. I remember in the wintertime, waking up at 5 a.m. and having ice in my rubber boots. I had to feed my animals before I could eat. I wouldn’t trade those values for the world.”
Walker revealed in Country Weekly, "The song kind of wrote itself, there was no struggle at all. Melody and words all came to me at the same time, and I wrote it in one night. It was like I was on this road - and it was the right road the whole time." Walker also said, "I never really had confidence in my voice at that time. My goal was to pitch it to Randy Travis or Clint Black, because I wanted to get a cut, thinking that would lead to a record deal of my own."