Songfacts®:

• Radney Foster co-wrote this song with Bobby Houck of Blue Dogs. "Bobby said, 'I have this idea that I really want us to write about tomorrow, if it's cool with you," Foster told us. "And he told me this story about his dad, and said that whenever his father was giving out fatherly advice, he always quoted Disraeli, who was the famous 19th-century English politician. And Disraeli always said that half of his mistakes were because he had been reticent, and the other half because he had been impetuous. And I said, 'Well, I don't know if 'reticent' and 'impetuous' will make it into a Country song, but I get the point. And it's a great idea. And so we'll write on it tomorrow.'"
  
  That night, says Foster, he was restless. So he went down into the basement of his home, and after everybody else in the house was asleep, he started writing the song, and got it about 90% complete. The next morning he phoned Bobby and said, "I hope you like the direction I'm going with this, because I've gotten really far down the road. I hope I'm not in a world of a mess." But when Bobby heard it, he said, "Man, that's just fantastic." And so they finished it together that morning. "And," says Foster, "it has a whole bunch of my whole life in there, heart and soul, all wrapped in that."
• This is the song, says Foster, that would best define his life. "You can't get through life without making mistakes," he says. "And I think that character is a product of how you handle mistakes, not whether or not you make any. And those are the defining moments in our lives, good or bad. And the other reason is that there are beautiful things - I mean, there are beautiful, beautiful things that have come out of some really big mistakes I've made. I would never have wished to have gotten divorced in my life. I would never have wished to go through that, but I wouldn't have the family I have today if I hadn't. You can't go back and say, 'Well, gosh, I wish I never married that woman.' I mean, I had a beautiful child with her. I loved her enough to do that. There's so many things in life that are built around what you do with life when things screw up." (Check out our full interview with Radney Foster.)
• British Conservative statesman Benjamin D'Israeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was born December 21, 1804. Having served in government for 3 decades, twice as Prime Minister, he became a well-known literary and social figure during his political career. While in office, the Disraeli government passed many social reforms including: the Artisans Dwellings Act (1875), the Public Health Act (1875), the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1875), and the Education Act (1876). He also introduced measures to protect workers, such as the 1874 Factory Act and the Climbing Boys Act (1875). Keeping good a promise to improve the legal position of trade unions, he introduced the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act (1875), which allowed peaceful picketing, and the Employers and Workmen Act (1878), which enabled workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legally agreed contracts.
  
  Disraeli was a friend of Queen Victoria, who granted him the title of Lord Beaconsfield in August 1876. It was because of his suggestion that she accepted the title of Empress of India. Disraeli is unusual among British Prime Ministers for having gained equal social, literary, and political renown. He wrote many novels over the years, though his most enduring are romance novels: Sybil, and Vivian Grey. Benjamin Disraeli died on August 19, 1881.
• This song is included on the Blue Dogs' 2004 CD Halos And Good Buys, and was recorded by Country music artist Jace Everett for his 2005 self-titled release.