George Strait just so happened to land on the perfect song for his debut that launched him into the Top 10 on the charts, all thanks to another singer’s run-in with the law.
Dean Dillon and Frank Dycus came up with “Unwound” in 45 minutes while drinking some beers in 1973. Unknown to them, the track would become a Hot Country Song chart hit at No.6 for Strait.
Dillon told Texas Monthly that he had left a less-than-desirable recording session with poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. He recalls having written a “sh*tty” track together when he bumped into Dycus while at the Third Coast bar and hotel.
“I said, ‘Man, I’ve got a great song idea. Let’s write it,'” Dillon recounts. “He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘She’s got me wrapped around her finger, but tonight I’m gonna unwind.’ And he looked at me and thought for a minute, and he said, ‘What about this: ‘That woman that I had wrapped around my finger just came unwound?”
Dycus’s idea was much better, and the two sat down at a table on the patio, sipping beers while finishing the rest of the song. Within 45 minutes, they had finished “Unwound” and “got good and drunk doing it.”
At the time, Strait was just making himself known as a country singer when record producer Blake Melvis stumbled upon Dillon and Dycus and asked them for a song. “Unwound” was originally intended for another country artist.
“He rolled his window down and said, ‘Hey, man, I got to cut this new kid from Texas. Y’all got any songs?'” Dillon recalls. “I said, ‘We’ve always got songs. As a matter of fact, we’ve got a song we were gonna pitch to Johnny Paycheck, but he’s in jail, so we’ll give it to you.'”
Paycheck was one of the country’s notable figures who pushed the outlaw movement in country music. Just as infamous as his career, so were his run-ins with the law. Despite “Unwound” having been recorded in 1981, there are no clear details on why he was in jail at the time.
He had been in jail on frequent occasions due to legal troubles and substance abuse-related issues. It wasn’t until December 1981, months after the song was released, that Paycheck was arrested for sexual abuse involving a minor.
Dillon ultimately ended up liking Strait’s voice, but admitted that no one “in their right mind would give some 20-something-year-old kid from Texas, completely unknown, their top-drawer stuff.” He told SongFacts that he often didn’t go with the normal way of thinking and was fueled to do the extraordinary if someone told him not to.
“So, I pitched him everything I had and ended up with six songs on his first album. I think a lot of that had to do with nobody else would give him anything. He never forgot that,” said Dillon.
“Unwound” was ranked on Rolling Stone’s list of the best breakup songs of all time, as its lyrics talk about a man who unravels following the end of his relationship.
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