‘Till I Gain Control Again (2016) – Alison Krauss

Posted on December 21, 2025 by observationblogger — 2 Comments

Today’s featured track is another stunning contribution by Alison Krauss. Her voice holds an ethereal beauty that is simply unparalleled. She possesses quite simply my favourite female country singer voice – there’s not even a close second. She also has that wholesome, girl-next-door beauty, can play a mean fiddle, and has picked up 27 Grammy Awards along the way. The whole package, really. I regret to admit I only came familiar with her music in recent years.

There are more versions of today’s song, Till I Gain Control Again, than you can poke a stick at, but it won’t surprise you that my favourite is Alison’s. I forwarded below her live performance at The Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris concert in 2016. The song is most known (according to Wikipedia) by the No. 1 single version recorded by Crystal Gayle on her 1982 album, True Love. Although Alison’s live version has 2.2 million views on You Tube compared to Crystal’s 203 thousand and Emmylou’s 792 thousand. I highly recommend the 1993 version from Canadian country rock band Blue Rodeo (2 million views), which I’ll put at the end of this post.

Most of the following was abridged from the Wikipedia below:

‘Till I Gain Control Again was written by Rodney Crowell and originally recorded by Emmylou Harris in 1975. Crowell was hanging out with noted songwriters Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Runkle, and wanted to show his own songwriting skill. In retrospect, Crowell expresses regret at rhyming “been” with “can” in the lyric “What you’ve seen is what I’ve been/There is nothing I could hide from you/You see me better than I can.” Had he written the song later in his career, Crowell says he would have spent time to find a hard rhyme. Crowell marvels when people tell him this song is their favorite of his. Crowell’s version was released on his third (self titled) album in 1981.

[Verse 1]
Just like the sun over the mountain tops
You know I’ll always come again
You know I love to spend my morning times
Like sunlight dancing on your skin

[Verse 2]
I’ve never gone so wrong as for telling lies to you
What you’ve seen is what I’ve been
There is nothing I could hide from you
You see me better than I can

[Chorus]
Out on the road that lies before me now
There are some turns where I will spin
I only hope that you can hold me now
Till I can gain control again

[Verse 3]
Like a lighthouse, you must stand alone
Landmark a sailor’s journey’s end
No matter what seas I have been sailing on
I’ll always roll this way again

[Chorus]
Out on the road that lies before me now
There are some turns where I will spin
I only hope that you can hold me now
Till I can gain control again

References:
1. Till I Gain Control Again – Wikipedia