Not gonna lie. I really, really used to not like country music. In the old days, when you would turn the dial to find your favorite radio station, I never stopped on the country music call numbers. Never.
Then, one day, not too long before Michelle and I got married, I heard a song (on the TV) called “Don’t Take The Girl” by Tim McGraw. In the middle of the song, I started weeping.
Uncontrollable, hardly breathing, lips trembling crying that’s happened like 3 or 4 times in life. Something about that song struck a nerve deep down and it took me a long time to figure out why.
“Don’t Take The Girl” was the first country song I ever chose to deliberately listen to all the way through. Some years after we were married, I found the song again and played it for Michelle in the car and we cried together. At that point I said to myself, country music is too painful. I didn’t listen to it again for many, many years.
The next time country music invaded my psyche was with an assignment in one of my classes. The students and I were challenged to find similarities between rap music and country music for a discussion about culture. The themes we discovered were incredible and the similarities were striking. I can remember the students comparing Trace Adkins’ “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and all of us laughing but also having a serious discussion about the objectification of women across music genres.
Man, we used to have fun in class before everyone got completely distracted by their phones.😂
I tell you all this, so that you know, when we first visited Nashville, it was not a homecoming of any sort for me. My general feeling after walking down the main streets with the kids and tilting our heads into several of the honky-tonks was: I actually REALLY love New Orleans. I love jazz. That’s my music. That’s all there is to it. Nashville is not for me.
I was still determined to not give country music a chance.
After getting some ice cream at an old fashioned shop, the kids and I walked back to the hotel and I told Michelle that Nashville just wasn’t for me. I’m done. I know people say it’s hallowed ground for American mountain music and gospel but I just can’t connect to it.
The next morning we headed out to Andrew Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, (which we will cover in our Part 3 post about Nashville) then high tailed it to the Smokey Mountains and Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Years later, we returned to Music City, and it was literally a repeat of the first experience except we added a tour of Vanderbilt University to the agenda. We walked down the main streets again, ducked into a few record stores and watering holes, then set out to explore the university in the West End part of town.
We loved Vanderbilt. Its campus was so green. Literally every type of tree that grows in the state of Tennessee can be found on campus.
Vanderbilt is often called a Southern Ivy but it can stand proud in its achievements without the comparisons to its uber elite northern neighbors. Any top student aiming to get a world class education, should put Vanderbilt on the must consider list.
After another Nashville disappointment, finally, on my third trip there, without kids, and without Michelle, the city’s power and music grabbed hold of me. I finally figured out what was missing. I realized after three trips what was preventing me from truly understanding the Music City and maybe even country music overall: heartache.
Man, you need a little sadness to fully take in the sights and sounds of Nashville. A heavy heart can open you up to the hope and “one last try” feel of the city.
Those honky-tonks take on a whole different meaning and sound when you’re there without the loves of your life and truly missing them. The bars take on an added element when you’re the one that is tired and down on your luck missing home and the ways things used to be. The city comes to life when your life is at a standstill or a dead end, or your heart’s been broken. Nashville and country music is a place to heal.
Walking down Broadway without the loves of my life made me not only appreciate the city and its music more, but it helped me see why I could barely listen to that dang Tim McGraw song. The words of the song captured and combined the worst heartache and loneliness I ever experienced as a kid. But it also made me think of the person who came into my life later and replaced that emptiness with love.
“Johnny’s daddy, was takin’ him fishin’ when he was eight years old…” still hits a place that is hard for me to describe. It makes me think of my own Dad and what might have been before he left my Mom, sister, and me for good.
And it’s the other part of the song that knocks me over with grief still today when I think of what I would do if anything ever happened to Michelle, the person who saved me from a life of sadness and regret.
“Take Jimmy Johnson, take Tommy Thompson…take my wallet…take my credit cards…take the heart from my chest…take me out of this world…but God, please, don't take the girl.”
Nashville is a story-telling town with a lot of lessons to share. Whether through its country music lyrics, its Southern charms, its Gospel roots, or its thumping honky-tonks, it’s worth a trip there to sit and listen and see what stories the city has for you.