Cahalen Morrison and Eli West
Natural Thing to Do
Musicians
“Natural Thing to Do” appears on Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers’ 1987 Rebel album Silver Reflections, the version associated with this entry. Sparks, a former Stanley Brothers lead singer (he succeeded Carter Stanley in 1966), built the Lonesome Ramblers around his hard, lonesome lead vocal and a deeply traditional repertoire centered on the Stanley lineage.
The song was written by Leroy Drumm and Pete Goble, who contributed a number of original pieces to the traditional-bluegrass circuit through the 1980s and 1990s. The song’s authorship is not consistently documented in the publicly available discographic sources for this particular track. The Sparks catalogue mixes self-written pieces, Stanleys-derived material, and outside contributions from songwriters in the harder traditional camp; the Rebel CD liner notes are the firmest reference for the writer attribution.
The lyric is a decision-and-surrender piece: the narrator’s heart drawn back to a former lover even though his judgement knows better, the pull described as the most natural thing in the world. Sparks’s lead vocal — one of the most distinctive in traditional bluegrass — carries the lyric without overplaying it. The song works as a moderate-tempo vocal piece in G with a clear chorus harmony slot.