Music is as necessary to me as air. Not a day goes by that is not made better by soothing tones, moving rhythms or lyrics that touch my heart. My tastes are quite eclectic and include classical, pop, all shades of rock including heavy metal, jazz, R&B, musical theater and rap/hip hop. There are myriad songs or pieces that have touched me in some way, that remind me of a particular time or place, a person, a relationship, a feeling. But it is actually an entire genre rather than a song that has stayed with me throughout my life, from my earliest musical recollections till today: country music.

When I was five, my parents divorced. My mom and I moved to a small apartment. Every morning, as we prepared for school and work, she used to turn on the radio in the kitchen and the station was always country music. I fell in love without being aware, especially with the storytelling. Sometimes the songs made me laugh, more often, they made me cry. Music --all music but particularly a good country song -- has had the ability to move me to tears (both happy and sad) since those early days of my childhood.

The first country song I remember crying to every time I heard it on the radio was Spring by Tanya Tucker. The lines that always made me burst into tears were: Momma don't go away/And leave me all alone/Momma said to the welfare lady/Find my child a good home. (There is a happy ending. Although Momma dies and Spring grows up in an orphanage, she finds love and gets married to her best friend from the orphanage in the end. :-)

One song that made my mother laugh hysterically when she heard me sing it was Lucille by Kenny Rogers. The chorus is You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille/With four hungry children and a crop in the field..." I, however, thought he was saying "400 children and a crop in the field." My mother cried she laughed so hard before saying, "400 children? I guess she did leave. I'm surprised she's not dead."

I could be heard singing other country songs throughout the 70s and 80s, along with all the other types of music that touched my soul in those years. In the 90s, life got crazy as I married, lost my daddy, had a child, bought a house, a car and started my career in education. It wasn't until 2001, when I was driving on 95 North heading home from a conference in DC that I found a country station for the first time in years. A new Alan Jackson song came on. I had to pull over because I couldn't stop weeping.The first lines were:

Where were you when the world stopped turnin'/that September day?

Were you in the yard with your wife and children/or workin' on some stage in L.A.?

Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke/risin' against that blue sky?

Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your neighbor/or did you just sit down and cry?

I was in a classroom, teaching that day - where I remained, consoling my students as fear and grief overwhelmed them, until the bell rang at 3:00 pm and I could finally speed to my son’s school and hug him close and take him home. My heart broke when he said so many parents had come to get their children early and he had wondered why I hadn't come sooner.

I cry every single time I hear that song.

After finding that station, I renewed my love of country. Until they took it off the air last fall, 94.7 NY Country was my go to radio station. Now, I'm all classical or "music from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s" when I have the radio on. But, more often than not, I put on one of my Playlists loaded with country music.

Over the last two decades, I have amassed a treasure trove of country songs that have made me feel not only joy or sadness, but also, simply, connected. We, humanity, share a lot of the same basic life experiences - love; lust; longing; anger; sadness; loss; loneliness; betrayal; family - the good, the bad and the ugly; work woes; illness; death. Country music has it all.

I guess I love country because so often it says exactly what I feel or felt or need to hear...or simply tells a great story that feels familiar or fun. I have it on in the bathroom as I shower, the kitchen as I cook, the living room as I clean, the car as I drive. I take it with me everywhere - it is a part of who I am.

your dad must have been so sick of that song. of every time we got in the car and made him play it. peach juice dripping from our chins and arms waving around in the back seat.

we knew every word and every movement. we sang it when we couldn't hear it and it made us so happy.

i hope your dad's resting well. i hope one day you can eat another peach. i wonder if i'll always have to ward off tears when i hear our song.

“Headed down south to the land of the pines,

I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline.

Starin’ up the road and pray to God I see headlights.”

My voice was hushed, almost a whisper, as I sang this song in the darkness. It was the only song I could think of to sing as my newborn baby boy laid in my arms. My son looked up at me with wide eyes, that I could make out by the light of the moon filtering through the window, soft and gentle as a caress.

This was the third insomniac night in a row, just home from the hospital. I felt afraid to go to bed. Sleep deprivation scrambled my thoughts and plagued me with a strange anxiety. For whatever the reason may have been, the lyrics calmed my nerves, grounding me to this precious, quiet moment.

“I made it down the coast in seventeen hours,

Pickin’ me a bouquet of dogwood flowers

And I’m a-hopin’ for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight.”

This was the only thing I could focus on. Only this moment. I battled the questions in my hyperactive brain. What am I supposed to do now? How can I care for him for the rest of my life? What if I mess up? What if he never sleeps? As the thoughts jabbed through my head, I took a calming breath and continued with my song.

“So, rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel,

Rock me, mama, any way you feel.

Hey… mama, rock me.

Rock me, mama, like the wind in the rain,

Rock me, mama, like a southbound train.

Hey… mama, rock me.”

Ever so slowly, heavy eyelids drooped over sleepy eyes of my son, and I felt mine following suit. Gently, I laid my baby beside me as I sleepily sang the rest of the song, forgetting half the words. Sleep encompassed the both of us, as I wrapped my arms around the now sleeping boy. The release of slumber was so sweet, tears slid down my cheeks as my brain phased into dreams. Everything was going to be alright. There would be endless days ahead of music to share with my sweet child.

There's a man I met once.

His voice was gritty and his skin was dark; tanned darker by a southern sun and an eastward wind.

His words were wise with experience but his soul dripped sadness.

In a verse, he could tell you where you were coming from. Though his origins were unknown.

His voice had a bit of Georgia...or was that Alabama? No, definitely Arkansas. No that's wrong, too.

His origins were unknown.

He came,

from out of the blues.

In 3 chords, he could tell you your future. In 3 more, he'd make sense of your past.

In the turnaround he'd reveal your greatest triumph. Then liken it to a time of vulnerability; that time you were most indefensibly exposed.

I was leveled to nothing, then he brought me back up. The chorus showed me his nascence and pulled me in with him.

He left me there to crawl out on my own.

to crawl out.

Out of the Blues.

Freshly broken people,

standing one whole person apart

seeing each other out of peripheral

someone on stage sings

hearts iron-guarded

minds left to wander

freshly broken people,

they can only think of each other

what could have been

what can never be

freshly broken people,

a song stirring their souls

a line drawing between them

the lyrics poking old wounds

freshly broken people,

hated how fate could be so cruel

The day was dark

Thick grey clouds hover around

Sometimes sun would peek in,

Sometimes you would see some slight color to this place.

Sometimes you would hear the sound of people striving.

It was a dark night,

The darkest night I had seen.

The clouds was too thick for the moon nor the stars to shine through.

The shadows were greater than the candles could ever reach.

The cold was slipping through the gaps of our wooden walls,

The howling winds sounded like countless wailing souls.

Our roof was almost torned off like countless neighbor's roof had, banging all over the place as it made the winds sound more of a suffering ghost parade slowly passing by.

My young imaginative mind was not very helpful at that time.

The devastation passed like nothing happened, except it left a trail that took months to fix.

It left scars that couldn't properly heal after time passed.

The old model of the cellphone my father owned was close to draining.

Only the two songs that are saved on the phone were playing nonstop, which could only be heared echoing throughout the night.

The same song would be played by the light of dawn while the roosters tries to break the deafening silence in our neighborhood.

After a few days,

The roof we had was crooked,

The streetlight across our neighbor toppled over, blocking the path.

The province lacked electricity for a month and over.

Mom was away for weeks.

Dad, my brother, and I was only there trying to live through the cold silence.

While the songs were there accompanying the stillness.

I was 7 years old.

Few years later, a random song was played by one of my neighbor through their speakers.

It sounded so familiar, I was bewildered by how much of a song could make me chocke my breath and force a bit of tears on me.

Then the memory came back like giant waves crushing me, drowning me, and doing it all over again.

...

For some unknown reason, countless typhoons were part of my core memory.

https://youtu.be/6thmPrTxBtI

https://youtu.be/OMD8hBsA-RI