Courtesy of (TNMusic) tnmusic@yahoo.com (Onelist.com) Feb 22, 2000 

The lyrics of Love's the Only House, Martina McBride's current hit, seem to pour out in a natural, stream-of-consciousness way, but it was anything but an easy song to write.
"We started it in '96 and it was just a song in progress for three years," said Tom Douglas, who co-wrote Love's the Only House with Buzz Cason. "We had been beating around another idea," Cason recalled, "and just were getting nowhere with it. "We had a Spanish feel, a I-IV-V-IV (chord progression) thing, and Tom just took off into it.
"He was pounding at the keyboard and I was thrashing at the guitar."
They hadn't even finished the song before they began reworking it. "When we got to the third verse, the part about 'culture of darkness, living together alone,' that crystallized the song, and we went back and rewrote it," Douglas said. Douglas recorded a version of the song for a solo project, but they were far from finished. They wrote the bridge section, recorded that separately and then edited it into the demo version. "We always knew we had something because when I played it live, it always got a good reaction," Douglas said.
The original version was slower than the current version, and they re-demoed it with more of an up-tempo feel. That demo attracted the attention of Paul Worley, Martina McBride's producer (and several other producers and artists as well). But before McBride recorded it, Douglas spent an hour with her, rewriting the second verse so that it fit her better. Finally, Love's the Only House was finished. The social commentary of the song is a Tom Douglas trademark, dating back to the early 1990s in Dallas, where he wrote songs about real people for his Sunday school class.
He had landed in Dallas after earning a degree from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta and an MBA from Georgia State and spending four frustrating years in Nashville.
He was selling real estate and writing songs just for the love of it when he wrote Little Rock, from the point of view of a recovering alcoholic.
He renewed his Nashville contacts, and in 1994 the song became a hit for Collin Raye. Douglas moved back to Nashville in 1997 with his three children and wife Katie, a Nashville native.  He's currently on the charts Another Nine Minutes by Yankee Grey and Nothing Catches Jesus by Surprise by John Michael Montgomery.
Buzz Cason grew up in East Nashville, and his upcoming CD and book project is appropriately titled East of Nashville: Living the Rock and Roll Dream. Based in his Creative Workshop recording studio in Berry Hill, Cason's work as a writer, publisher, producer and artist has enhanced Nashville's reputation for several decades.
As a writer, his credits range from Sandy by Ronny and the Daytonas to Everlasting Love by Robert Knight, Carl Carlton and most recently Gloria Estefan.
He's published such hits as She Believes in Me, Honey, Little Green Apples, Bluer Than Blue and a number of early Jimmy Buffett songs, including The Great Filling
Station Hold Up.  As a singer, his voice has been heard on Blue Velvet by the Statues and as a member of Ronny and the Daytonas, the Crickets and the Casuals (Brenda Lee's backup band).  Cason's production credits include records by Freddy Weller, Dickey Lee, Bobby Russell and Buddy Knox plus the videos for She Loves Her Truck (To The Max) and Riskey Business (Buck Hall). His most recent producing project is with his Love's the Only House co-writer Tom Douglas.

OnNashville

Courtesy of (TNMusic) tnmusic@yahoo.com (Onelist.com) Feb 11, 2000 

In addition to her own music, Martina has also been working with Sara Evans on her next album. Sara asked Martina to produce a cut on her upcoming album, and Martina agreed. Itıs a song called "You," and Martina will likely sing background vocals on it. Asked if producing other people is something sheıd like to get into, she said, "Yes, (but) I think it would probably be easier for me to do at a later time when Iıve kind of said everything and done everything that I creatively have to do within myself." Look for Martinaıs next single, "There You Are" to be part of the soundtrack for an upcoming Ashley Judd/Natalie Portman movie. Martina says when she first heard the song, she just knew it belonged in a movie, and yeah, she also thinks itıs kind of cool to have one of her songs in a major motion picture. ("There You Are" will be heard nationally this weekend on the Country Giants special).
Neil Haislop's Nashville Update