Tuesday, September 01, 2009

You should have seen "In Color" performed last night!

You will need a tissue or two before you watch this video...you've been warned.




It's not like me to recommend a country & western song...ask my college roomie, Linda McCrary. I once told her to pull her little red Pinto over to the curb so I could WALK rather than listen to some C&W heartbreak twangfest playing on her radio!

Side note: Linda liked ALL music. everything imaginable. Her album collection included Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, Ethel Merman records (oh, yes!), and everything in between. There was no telling what you would hear as you entered our apartment. I, on the other hand, drove her crazy with The Police and Prince...over and over...and over.

So, fast forward 24 years...last night when Jamey Johnson performed "In Color," it made me cry. Absolutely terrific. So maybe I've finally broadened my horizons? Maybe returning to Texas, the land of my birth, has changed me? Maybe that one George Strait concert I attended finally convinced me?

Who cares?! Bring on the Nashville, baby!

P.S. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure what got me first about this song was the cotton farm (which reminded me of Nanny, the best cotton chopper in Collin County, and her sister Lillian, the best cotton picker of Collin County, according to their dad, my great-grandpa) and the line about the tail gunner. As soon as he sang about the tail gunner, the throat lump started; the tears came when he got to the part about the wedding day. Unlike the tail gunner in this song, my dad's Uncle Lloyd didn't come home. His best friend, Levi Frank Caldwell, did, though, and I felt SO PRIVILEGED to meet him last Christmas.

You can see pictures of him here.

(The cloth he embroidered from threads he hid from his captors is stained with his own blood.) Mr. Caldwell only told me one thing about his torture in a prison camp, and it was pretty dreadful. It is obvious that there is so much that he intentionally keeps to himself about those days...he said that more than once he thought to himself that my Uncle Lloyd, who died as the tail of Our Belle hit the ground, was the lucky one...

2 comments:

Melanie said...

What a pretty song! I'd never heard it before... and I do like country! LOL Thanks for sharing!

LoneStarLifer said...

I listen to country music and I LOVE this song. I have pictures of my mom and dad that I think of when I hear this song.
I have a post ready to publish next week about another country singer, Brad Paisley. Check out his song "When I Get Where I'm Going" that he duets with Dolly Parton. You can find him on CMT website.
Glad to read you are doing better. You won a deck of cards if you want to claim them. Janet J also won so you guys can play something that requires two decks!