Mindy McCready Recorded Possible ‘Video Suicide Note’
One day before Mindy McCready was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the singer sent a private investigator she had been working with a cryptic message. It was a single frame from a video they had been working on together of McCready singing a song called 'I'll See You Yesterday.'
E! News reports that the song -- heard below -- was David Wilson's final effort as a producer before he died in January. It features McCready singing lyrics written by Courtney Dashe, an up-and-coming songwriter who'd worked with McCready in recent years.
"I thought she was talking about sending a message about suicide for David's death," Danno Hanks told E! of his response when he received message, "but this is unbelievable. She was sending me a message. I wish I had been more alert to what it was."
Hanks describes the below video as her "video suicide note" on his Facebook page. Dashe tells Taste of Country that she shared the song with McCready when the singer heard her perform it a couple of years ago during a writer's night at the Hotel Indigo in Nashville. Carrie Underwood had it on hold at the time, but she told McCready she could have it if Underwood let it go. Weeks later that's what happened, but Dashe says she didn't know McCready cut it until last weekend when Hanks contacted her.
"My co-writer, Jason Walker, and I never intended it to be a suicide, or even a death song, but music has a life of its own," Dashe says. "I'd liked to think it helped Mindy cope with some things in her life, but wish it could have prevented things from ending the way they did."
Hanks describes the effort McCready made at the end of her life to make sure Dashe was insured royalties and copyrights to the song. Lyrically, 'I'll See You Yesterday' tells the story of a woman afraid to look forward because she doesn't like what she's facing.
"Let's get lost in our memories / That's the safest place we can be / If this is the end of our story, I don't wanna read it," McCready sings before a soaring chorus.
"I was your sunlight / Now I'm just a shade / I was your blue sky / Now I'm just the rain / I was your favorite song / Now I'm overplayed / If tomorrow's gonna be the same / I'll see you yesterday."
The singer's final album was 'I'm Still Here,' which was released in 2010. She's best known for the title track from her debut album, 'Ten Thousand Angels.'
Listen to Mindy McCready's 'I'll See You Yesterday'