Saskatchewan singer/songwriter’s new track reflects on life on the road while paying tribute to one of his heroes
You know that old prairies joke about watching your dog run away for three days? Saskatchewan country/Americana singer-songwriter Tommy John Ehman certainly does. As a fifth generation grain farmer, his home province’s endless flat expanses shaped who he is, both as a person and an artist. It’s also territory he knows intimately through the countless kilometers he’s covered while playing his music across western Canada.
Those long drives are the foundation of Ehman’s new single, “Me & Dylan (Coming Home)” available today on all digital platforms. It’s a quintessential heartland rock road song produced by Brad Prosko—who also plays drums and guitar on the track—and featuring Tommy’s cousin Rob Ehman on bass. “Me & Dylan (Coming Home)” is the latest addition to Tommy’s body of work that includes six full-length albums and 11 singles that have helped him earn multiple Saskatchewan Country Music Association award nominations, and share stages with some of Canada’s best-loved country music artists.
He’ll be back on those roads again in the summer of 2024, with “Me & Dylan (Coming Home)” providing the soundtrack. And the Dylan mentioned in the title? It is indeed none other than His Bobness, one of Tommy’s primary influences, along with other Midwestern radio staples like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Prine.
“The highway can be a lonely place, especially on a long, late-night journey home,” Tommy says. “But with some great music and sweet peaceful thoughts about getting home, it can help make the trip just a little easier on the heart and mind. I’ve written a lot of road songs, driving songs, missing home songs and missing friends and family songs. I’ve come to realize that writing from that perspective has been a sort of therapy that I use to make sense of all the late night drives and being away from home.”
Although farming is in his blood, Tommy has been playing music and writing songs for nearly all of his life as well. And now that he’s pulled back on doing manual labour due to health issues, his musical output has increased exponentially this decade.
“Whether good, bad, great or indifferent, songwriting has been my main focus as a musician and that hasn’t wavered much at all over the years,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten a lot better after writing hundreds of songs. But then performing those songs and seeing the ways that audiences respond to them is what really makes me keep pushing forward and trying to improve.”
With “Me & Dylan (Coming Home),” Tommy certainly has taken another step forward in terms of creating a song that speaks directly to that place within all of us that craves the romance of the open road, and the unique role that radio plays in it. Sure, technology has made the world a lot smaller, but when you’re in Tommy’s hometown of Craik, halfway between Regina and Saskatoon on Highway 11, the vastness of your surroundings can still be awe-inspiring. It leads to big sounds and big emotions, two things that define Tommy John Ehman’s music. Get your motor running, and head out on the highway.
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