Memorial Day: if you’re reading this…
I’ve posted this song before, but I think it bears repeating, especially on Memorial Day.
It’s Tim McGraw’s extraordinarily moving song “If You’re Reading This:”
If you’re readin’ this
My momma’s sittin’ there
Looks like I only got a one way ticket over here.
I sure wish I could give you one more kiss
War was just a game we played when we were kids
Well I’m layin’ down my gun
I’m hanging up my boots
I’m up here with God and we’re both watchin’ over youSo lay me down
In that open field out on the edge of town
And know my soul
Is where my momma always prayed that it would go.
If you’re readin’ this I’m already home.If you’re readin’ this
Half way around the world
I won’t be there to see the birth of our little girl
I hope she looks like you
I hope she fights like me
And stands up for the innocent and the weak
I’m layin’ down my gun,
I’m hanging up my boots
Tell dad I don’t regret that I followed in his shoes…
The first time I ever heard the song I got the chills as the lyrics unfolded and I realized what it was about, and then again and again as the heartstrings were jerked more and more as the song went on.
I say “the heartstrings were jerked,” which sounds as though I’m being critical and the song is manipulative. Well, it’s manipulative in the sense that it means to affect the listener emotionally, and it means to sell songs. But I see nothing wrong with that, if the emotion is sincere and deep. Most of us do, or should, feel a very strong gratitude to the young men and women who sacrificed their lives to defend liberty here and abroad, and a very strong sorrow that it was necessary. On Memorial Day, we thank them.
Most of us do, or should, feel a very strong gratitude to the young men and women who sacrificed their lives to defend liberty here and abroad, and a very strong sorrow that it was necessary. On Memorial Day, we thank them.
WE do.
Some do it with ice cream.
Too many view Memorial Day as just another paid day off work or off school. It used to be called decoration day when the public in rural Iowa put flags and flowers on the graves of vets.
“And know my soul
Is where my momma always prayed that it would go.”
Beautiful words, just beautiful.
G6loq – that someone says it with ice cream doesn’t surprise us at this point, does it?
Neo: it is the job of a musician — or any artist / entertainer, really — to evoke an emotional response. Some are content with a shallow response (e.g. a chuckle, a smile); others go for something deeper.
This is as it should be. I was once asked, as a singer, what I was trying to accomplish. I said that I was trying to sing a song, as well as I could. No, came the response. Your job is to create an emotional journey, an emotional roller-coaster ride, for your audience. You want them to go home tonight, feeling that they’ve been somewhere, and that they are glad for the journey.
A work of art that touches your soul, be it a song or a painting or a sculpture or a movie or whatever, can leave you feeling as though you’ve just had a stiff drink or two. This remains true, even if you contemplate that the artist in question was pulling at your heartstrings deliberately, trying to pay the bills. It means that the artist is good at his or her job, that’s all.
Enjoy!
It sings much better than it reads.It’s a terrific, moving song.
But its theme represents the last vestiges of the Greatest Generation. Who today wants to have BHO as a C-in-C?
Who today wants to serve in the Fustercluck nourished by BHO in Iraq, the BHO who pisses on the graves of the Americans who died there, the BHO whose DOD is a mere shadow of its needed size?
Those days will be a long time coming back.
Tim McGraw is a gun ban supporter and should be not welcome here.
It is much easier to destroy something than to make it. How long did it take terrorists on 9/11 to kill a building that took how many months and years to build?
The Left can destroy life, that took the parents how many years to raise and protect?
Such is the power of evil, for when it comes, people underestimate it and think it’s a Clown Car.