Song of the Day 6/20: Eric Clapton, “Tulsa Time”

Donald Trump, flailing about for a way to stop his losing streak, takes his circus to Tulsa tonight, and I swear the press hasn’t slavered for blood this intently since Evel Knievel’s attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon. Let’s hope tonight is just as big a dud (if you’re too young to remember it, the parachute on Knievel’s rocket-cycle deployed on launch, causing it to land in the canyon).

Oklahoma’s second-largest city has a somewhat nasty reputation these days, thanks to renewed interest in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre after it was used as a plot device in “The Watchmen” TV show. But it wasn’t always so. This song, a No. 1 country hit for Don Williams in 1978, equated Tulsa with a laid-back lifestyle that compared favorably for the singer to the bustle of Los Angeles.

The tune was written by Williams’ touring guitarist, Danny Flowers. “We were staying in the Tulsa Sheraton, I think, when a blizzard came up,” Flowers said. “We were all snowed in, and there was absolutely nothing to do. I was sitting there in my room, watching ‘The Rockford Files,’ with some hotel stationery beside me, just bored, and I started writing out some verses.” He said it took about a half-hour to write.

When he played it for Williams the next day, Williams, known as the “gentle giant of country music,” wanted to record it. Soon after Williams was booked to open an Eric Clapton concert in Nashville. The bands were hanging out together when Williams and Flowers played it for Clapton, who said he wanted to record it, too. His version came out on his “Backless” LP three months after Williams’ single debuted.