Damn Country Music
A Taste for Life November Prompt 7: A moment, a lifetime.
The hum of wheels on the blacktop The strum of strings on a flat top It’s a neon fever for a small town dreamer Tells you everything you have is worth losing Damn country music — Tim McGraw
Yes sir! That damn country music — it reverberates in my soul, and chasing it damn near broke me.
On a rainy Spring day in 2018, I set my feet upon hallowed ground, The Grand Ole Opry. I was on a road trip up to Canada and the city was the main attraction for the trip. My holy land, the heart of country music — Nashville, Tennessee.
I’ve mentioned my love of Dolly before — that would be Parton — not that I even need to give a last name for this legend. My love of her unique country twang and iconic tunes dates back to when I was a child, but that’s as far as country music went for me. As I was born in 70s South Africa, I grew up on ABBA and the Beatles as most of us did, with a good dose of Queen reverberating through the house thanks to my mother’s undying love of Freddie Mercury.
As a child of the 80s, I wore the neon clothing, the “Madonna gloves,” teased my hair, and wore leg warmers. We were girls just wanting to have fun listening to a chameleon draped in karma who just couldn’t get enough.
Country music was nowhere on my radar.
It crept in slowly in the early 2000s, country pop at first, easing me in like an experienced truck driver pulling expertly into a rest stop. I don’t remember the day or time or even the song that started to reel me in, but at forty-nine years old, I’m as hooked as a poor old bass on a fishing lure.
So many of my memories are tied up with the lyrics of country songs. Driving around Perth in Australia in my little Toyota Yaris cranking the sound and singing out of tune, I dreamed of the day that I would be able to croon to the same songs whilst driving on the back roads of a state where the country music flowed like strawberry wine — it sure as hell did not in Western Australia!
It was my love of damn country music that caused me to chase that dream in late 2017, packing up my home in Australia and moving to Texas on a wing and a prayer. I don’t believe I could ever find the right words to express the joy I felt driving Melissa, the army-green 2002 Ford Explorer that I bought from a man who looked remarkably like Jesus, whilst listening to crying steel guitars serenade me as I drove through the streets of San Antonio.
The move caused me to blow up my life in epic proportions, but even as I piece my life back together, I don’t regret a single moment.
Country music speaks to me in a way that other music doesn’t. It’s the language of storytellers. Whether they tell tales of love, loss, beer, trucks, honky tonks, or expectant hope, it’s all music to my ears. Whether I’m happy, sad, or merely ambivalent, it’s that damn country music I turn to.
It holds my memories and my dreams and keeps me going when all hope seems lost.
My visit to the Grand Ole Opry was but a mere moment in time but it is what it represents that’s important — a lifetime of dedication to music that soothes my soul.
