The other night, my husband emerged from our daughter’s bedroom to find me curled up in the middle of a box of Joe-Joes and a Garth Brooks Live from Las Vegas special. I tried to play it off like it was musically educational, which it was, but I was initially drawn in by this country powerhouse and the nostalgia that comes with his music. I don’t know what was playing on the radio at your home, but the Brownlee kids grew up on Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Martina McBride and Garth Brooks. And I just realized the irony that the latter is the only one I haven’t met! (Gotta love living in Nashville!) Humor me for a minute as I stroll down memory lane… I clearly remember owning a Lorrie Morgan cassette tape and listening to her cover of “Tears on My Pillow” over and over. I’m pretty sure one of my cousins had a life-size cardboard cutout of Randy Travis (someone please confirm or deny this for me!). My parents embraced the boot-scooting phase of country music in the ’90s, and we heel-toed to a lot of Brooks & Dunn! And then there was the brief phase after seeing him in concert at a local fair that I was in love with Dwight Yoakam (yes, you read that right, not the ever-popular Tim McGraw or my mom’s personal heartthrob, George Strait. Yes, little old me had a childhood crush on Dwight Yoakam!)
Isn’t it fascinating how vivid our memories are when tied to music? It’s like muscle memory, it absorbs into the very fiber of our being. Being an overly sentimental person from birth, I can still remember watching with tears streaming down face as Vince Gill performed “I Still Believe in You” at the CMAs. Fast-forward to my couch in Nashville 2013, and I’m singing a duet with Garth Brooks recalling every word to “If Tomorrow Never Comes”, serenading my bewildered hubby with my luscious singing voice. I guess it’s true what they say, “you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”
Ah, the good ole days of country music. Stop and take a minute to let the nostalgia of the ’90s wash over you. I hope, dear reader, that you leave comments on this post, even if you didn’t relive the same music memories as me. But “if I start walking your way, and you start walking mine…we can meet in the middle ‘neath that old Georgia pine”(Diamond Rio).
~peace and love, LR
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