EXCLUSIVE – Lee Greenwood and Sara Evans release new songs with surprise songwriter in the checkout credits, the late President Ronald Reagan.
Reagan may have been busy running for president of the United States in the 1970s and finishing his term as governor of California, but he still found time to co-write a few patriotic songs with producer Mike Curb, founder and president of Curb. Records.
Curb said he met Reagan in 1974, his last year as governor, at an event for Junior Achievement, a charity that teaches students the concepts of free enterprise. The two reconciled and Reagan asked the songwriter if he wanted to help him campaign for the presidency.
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Curb credits California’s brutal traffic with giving him and Reagan enough time to write songs together in the ’70s, starting with “Together, a New Beginning.”
“There was so much traffic in California in the ’70s that I used to travel with them,” Curb said Fox News Digital. “And we wrote songs together on several occasions. One of them was the theme song for a convention in 1980 that was played. It was called ‘Together, A New Beginning’… several of our musicians came to the convention. was in Detroit that year.. . And then that song was sung at the convention.”
Ronald Reagan during his presidential run. (Getty Images)
Reagan lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford in 1976, but Curb said he channeled his disappointment into writing more music.
“And then we wrote a song called ‘God Has a Greater Plan’ after he lost the ’76 election,” Curb said. “He was a little down and didn’t think he would run again. And I told him, ‘God has a bigger plan.’ And he said, ‘Oh, that’s what Nancy says,’ and then we wrote a song called ‘God as a Greater Plan’… And then we wrote a third song, ‘We Can Begin the World Over Again,’ which was all his lyrics.”
Many years later, producer Mark Joseph played it for Lee Greenwood, who decided to fix it and change it to “Let’s Start the World Over”.
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Greenwood recalled that unforgettable conversation.
“He said, ‘Ronald Reagan and Mike Curb tried to write a song,'” Greenwood told Fox News Digital. “And he sent it to me, and he said, ‘It’s really not – it’s never been completed.’ The idea was to change the world and how naive it is, but what a beautiful thought it is.”
“And I knew Ronald Reagan pretty well, I knew Mike Curb pretty well – I was on his label for a while, and that gave me a chance to redo the song,” Greenwood continued. “And I redid the song for them, they loved it. I recorded a version and it should be released soon on their follow-up album from the movie ‘Reagan’.”
Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office. (Noah “Nanea” Hamilton/Rawhide Pictures)
Greenwood wrote a new song, but said he kept some specific lyrics, including the phrase “beacon of freedom.”
The “Proud to Be an American” singer said Tennessean that he mixed Reagan’s “altruism” and Curb’s “visionary” tendencies together with a desire to reframe the song as specifically related to his awareness of Reagan’s legacy and the many conversations they had about “how much he believed in the United States as the world’s greatest symbol for freedom. “
“These songs remind many generations of what (we fondly) remember about the ‘good old days’ in American society,” Curb said of the song. “Honestly reflecting what Reagan was at his core as an entertainer and centered, responsible, good and honest human being who was easy to get along with.”
When asked if he was surprised by Reagan’s songwriting skills, Curb pointed out that before Reagan entered politics, he spent years as a Hollywood star. During his career, Reagan acted or acted in more than 50 films. He was the subject of the 2024 biopic “Reagan,” with Dennis Quaid portraying the 40th president.
Singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
He was an amazing guy, Curb said. “Because, you know, sitting in the back seat with him, it was like sitting with your first neighbor. Very down-to-earth. I think all my friends, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, look back on Reagan as the good old days.”
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“Start the World Over Again” will be released soon, while country singer Sara Evans is set to release her recording of “God Has a Greater Plan.”
Fox News Digital’s Hannah Lambert contributed to this report.
