Thanks to everyone who commented on my interpretation of those lyrics. It was a funny thing that I initially passed over the thread because when I read the title, something like "Your take on the same song", I thought "He wants people copy the same song?" Then I saw all those follow up posts and read the original. Once I did that, I printed out the lyrics and sat at the piano and that song came out in about 20 minutes. The flow of the lyric, as usual, determined where the breaths will be and dictated the cadence of how the lyric would line up with the beats of the music. That prosody is SO important.

I was V7 and at that point had not listened to 1 thru 6. Once I was done and posted I went back and listened to 1 thru 6, and then to Elvis Snyder's hilarious V8, and now the heavier V9. All well done. All great examples of how different songwriter's see things.

And Rog, you didn't know I had a softer side? After Jessie redid "The One That Got Away" (and that redo was better than the original) you still say that? How much softer can it get than a guy crying because he let "the one" (though she turned out to be psychotic - I thought so at the time!) slip through his fingers?

If you still have the original, it'd be fun to post them side by side for everyone to hear a great example of two thought processes. I know you still have the Jessie version online.