Another thought I wanted to get down from our trip to Nashville as a scene from an otherwise frustrating Saturday night. In a rather odd (and oddly underattended) award ceremony at the Country Music Museum, we watched the lead singer of the group Arrested Development receive an award for a song they wrote back in the 1990s: Tennessee.
Speech is the singer -- and while I have always enjoyed the song, it was only after hearing him describe the circumstances under which it was written (after the death of his grandmother and brother) that I came to fully appreciate what a powerful prayer the song is. Perhaps it can serve as a(nother) reminder of the many different ways we can celebrate this life, this gift:
I don't know where I can go
To let these ghosts out of my skull
My grandmas past, my brothers gone
I never at once felt so alone
I know you're supposed to be my steering wheel
Not just my spare tire
But lord I ask you
To be my guiding force and truth
For some strange reason it had to be
He guided me to Tennessee
(Chorus) Take me to another place
Take me to another land
Make me forget all that hurts me
Let me understand your plan
Lord it's obvious we got a relationship
Talkin to each other every night and day
Although you're superior over me
We talk to each other in a friendship way
Then outta nowhere you tell me to break
Outta the country and into more country
Past Dyesburg into Ripley
Where the ghost of childhood haunts me
Walk the roads my forefathers walked
Climbed the trees my forefathers hung from
Ask those trees for all their wisdom
They tell me my ears are so young
Go back to from whence you came
My family tree my family name
For some strange reason it had to be
He guided me to Tennessee.
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