WEBVTT - The King of Tears 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.196 Pushkin In Nashville, Tennessee. There's a songwriter named Bobby Braddock. 0:00:22.796 --> 0:00:26.316 He's in his seventies, maybe five foot seven, bald head, 0:00:26.836 --> 0:00:29.596 scruffy beard, wiry, like if you messed with them in 0:00:29.676 --> 0:00:33.236 a bar, you'd probably lose. The most striking thing about 0:00:33.276 --> 0:00:35.916 him is his eyes, which are the palest and most 0:00:35.916 --> 0:00:39.676 intense shade of blue. He wears sunglasses a lot, and 0:00:39.716 --> 0:00:41.756 it's almost as if he needs to protect the world 0:00:41.796 --> 0:00:45.796 from that look there. I met him on a music 0:00:45.876 --> 0:00:48.636 row in Nashville. We had lunch, and then we sat 0:00:48.676 --> 0:00:50.676 in one of the writer's rooms in the Sony Building, 0:00:51.196 --> 0:00:54.676 piano in the corner, couches to one side, and he 0:00:54.756 --> 0:00:57.196 talked about his education in the music business. 0:00:57.596 --> 0:01:00.196 I think I always had the reputation as being kind 0:01:00.196 --> 0:01:03.036 of a quirky writer, maybe a little left field. 0:01:03.956 --> 0:01:06.276 The turning point in Braddock's career was a song you've 0:01:06.316 --> 0:01:09.276 probably heard of. It was performed by Tammy Whyne that 0:01:09.676 --> 0:01:12.076 back when she was the reigning Queen of country music 0:01:12.476 --> 0:01:15.316 nineteen sixty eight, about a mom who had to spell 0:01:15.356 --> 0:01:18.796 out the word d I v O rcee so her 0:01:18.876 --> 0:01:21.036 kids wouldn't know their parents were splitting up. 0:01:21.636 --> 0:01:22.876 So D w r C. 0:01:23.796 --> 0:01:25.316 Yeah. 0:01:25.556 --> 0:01:28.876 I wrote this, did a demo on it, and no tikers, 0:01:28.956 --> 0:01:30.836 nobody did it. Nobody would recorded. 0:01:31.796 --> 0:01:34.556 D I v O RCE was a song with a gimmick. 0:01:35.196 --> 0:01:38.116 Braddick did a lot of gimmicky songs back then. No 0:01:38.156 --> 0:01:41.236 one wanted this one. So Braddick went to a friend 0:01:41.276 --> 0:01:43.436 and longtime collaborator, Curly Putman. 0:01:43.876 --> 0:01:46.556 So I said, well, why haf nobody recording? He said, 0:01:46.836 --> 0:01:51.116 I think around the important part of your song, said, 0:01:51.316 --> 0:01:54.676 sad song, and your melodies on that part is too happy. 0:01:56.716 --> 0:02:08.796 What I was doing was, oh, stop this a little 0:02:08.796 --> 0:02:11.636 bit like a like a soap commercial. I said, well, 0:02:11.676 --> 0:02:15.076 what would you do? And he gets a guitar and 0:02:15.076 --> 0:02:19.716 he had this really mournful singing style. Tammy Whnette was 0:02:19.756 --> 0:02:22.156 a big fan of Curly singing. She left her singing 0:02:22.196 --> 0:02:25.236 because he had. I mean, he just you singing. It 0:02:25.356 --> 0:02:30.196 was just so sad. It gives a guitar. Oh wish 0:02:30.916 --> 0:02:40.756 we get started this. So I said, just get your guitar. 0:02:40.916 --> 0:02:42.876 Let's let's put it on tape like that, you know. 0:02:43.836 --> 0:02:45.996 D I v O r C went to number one. 0:02:46.396 --> 0:02:49.796 It was Bobby Braddock's first great exercise in how to 0:02:49.796 --> 0:02:54.236 make people cry and From then on, things just got sadder. 0:02:58.476 --> 0:03:02.116 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:03:02.356 --> 0:03:11.556 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:03:11.596 --> 0:03:14.716 about something that has never made sense to me. Maybe 0:03:14.716 --> 0:03:17.676 it's because I'm a Canadian, or maybe Americans puzzle about 0:03:17.676 --> 0:03:20.876 this too. I'm talking about the bright line that divides 0:03:20.916 --> 0:03:25.876 American society, not the color line or the ideological line. 0:03:26.996 --> 0:03:35.796 I'm talking about the sad song rie. I don't know 0:03:35.836 --> 0:03:38.796 why people don't talk about this more because it's weird. 0:03:39.676 --> 0:03:42.276 For the sake of argument, let's use the rock magazine 0:03:42.356 --> 0:03:44.556 Rolling Stone's list of the best songs of all time, 0:03:44.796 --> 0:03:49.116 the top fifty. These are the critics choices. Hotel California 0:03:49.156 --> 0:03:52.116 by the Eagles comes in up forty nine, which, as 0:03:52.116 --> 0:03:54.276 far as I can tell, is a song about drugs. 0:03:54.876 --> 0:03:59.316 Toutty Fruity by Little Richard at forty three Tuty Fruity, 0:03:59.876 --> 0:04:03.676 which I remind you has as its signature lyric tooty fruity, 0:04:03.756 --> 0:04:07.636 oh ruddy touty fruity, Oh rudy touty fruity, oh rudy 0:04:08.116 --> 0:04:11.716 touty fruity, O rudy wop bop alo Bop a Loop, 0:04:11.796 --> 0:04:17.196 Bam boom, there's Dancing in the Street at forty light, 0:04:17.276 --> 0:04:21.716 My Fire Be My Baby, Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit, 0:04:22.236 --> 0:04:25.436 Derek and the dominoes Leyla. There are songs about wanting 0:04:25.476 --> 0:04:29.796 to have sex, songs about having sex, songs about getting high, 0:04:29.796 --> 0:04:33.276 presumably after having sex. Number one song on the list 0:04:33.636 --> 0:04:36.996 like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. Ah, You've gone 0:04:36.996 --> 0:04:39.956 to the finest schools, all right, miss Lonely, But you 0:04:40.116 --> 0:04:43.116 know you only used to get juiced in it. Nobody's 0:04:43.116 --> 0:04:44.876 ever taught you how to live out on the street, 0:04:45.276 --> 0:04:47.156 and now you're gonna have to get used to it. 0:04:48.196 --> 0:04:50.196 I think that's a song about someone who dropped out 0:04:50.196 --> 0:04:53.196 of Harvard. The number one rock song of all time 0:04:53.516 --> 0:05:00.836 is about dropping out of Harvard. In all of those 0:05:00.836 --> 0:05:05.476 fifty songs, nobody dies after a long illness, no marriage disintegrates, 0:05:05.916 --> 0:05:08.876 nobody's killed on a battlefield, no mother grieves for a 0:05:08.956 --> 0:05:12.596 so on. The closest that any song in Rolling Stone's 0:05:12.636 --> 0:05:16.156 list comes to being truly sad is Smoky Robinson's Tracks 0:05:16.156 --> 0:05:19.196 of My Tears, which is first of all number fifty. 0:05:19.476 --> 0:05:21.236 So they put the sad song at the bottom of 0:05:21.236 --> 0:05:24.156 the list. And secondly, it's about a guy at a 0:05:24.196 --> 0:05:28.676 party in their moments of greatest travail. The protagonists of 0:05:28.756 --> 0:05:33.156 rock and roll's sad songs still get to go to parties. Now. 0:05:33.316 --> 0:05:36.396 Just turn on a country music station, especially a traditional 0:05:36.436 --> 0:05:40.516 country music station, and listen. It's like a different universe. 0:05:41.156 --> 0:05:44.316 Marriage is going to hell, people staring into their shot 0:05:44.356 --> 0:05:47.516 glass in a honky tonk, people dying young. If you 0:05:47.596 --> 0:05:52.116 ever heard John Prine's Unwed Fathers, it's a devastating bit 0:05:52.156 --> 0:05:56.236 of songwriting about a teenage mom fleeing town. He sings 0:05:56.276 --> 0:05:57.436 it with his wife Rachel. 0:05:57.956 --> 0:06:02.716 Also Wario Bam smoking Mantain. 0:06:05.276 --> 0:06:10.596 She bow. Now all the bad. 0:06:12.236 --> 0:06:20.716 Your daddy meant to hurt you ever, You just don't 0:06:21.116 --> 0:06:24.676 live here, but you got his eyes. 0:06:27.596 --> 0:06:31.156 Those last two lines, your daddy never meant to hurt 0:06:31.196 --> 0:06:33.916 you ever. He just don't live here, but you've got 0:06:33.956 --> 0:06:34.476 his eyes. 0:06:34.996 --> 0:06:43.596 That's brutal, black bad dream all on. We fob. 0:06:45.596 --> 0:06:48.676 One half of the country, the rock music part, wants 0:06:48.756 --> 0:06:51.796 their music to be hymns to extra version. The other 0:06:51.836 --> 0:06:54.996 half wants to talk about real life dramas and have 0:06:55.036 --> 0:06:58.716 a good cry. I don't get it, by the way, 0:06:58.996 --> 0:07:01.596 you know who wrote that unwed Father's Song with John Prine, 0:07:02.836 --> 0:07:10.676 Bobby Braddock, or maybe you've heard this another classic recorded 0:07:10.676 --> 0:07:13.676 by Tammy Whynett Golden. 0:07:13.396 --> 0:07:20.276 Word with a Long Time Long pritaside. 0:07:21.156 --> 0:07:27.916 Loud long bus Golden Ring. It follows a couple from 0:07:27.956 --> 0:07:30.636 first love to the breakup of their marriage by tracing 0:07:30.676 --> 0:07:34.516 the journey of their wedding ring from pawnshop to pawnshop. 0:07:35.316 --> 0:07:40.596 It's a weeper who wrote it, Bobby Braddock, and today, 0:07:41.196 --> 0:07:44.396 forty years after he wrote it, Braddock is still mad 0:07:44.396 --> 0:07:47.156 about a one word change made by the song's producer, 0:07:47.236 --> 0:07:51.116 Billy Cheryl, because that made his song one crucial degree 0:07:51.276 --> 0:07:51.796 less sad. 0:07:52.476 --> 0:07:53.116 But we had. 0:07:53.956 --> 0:07:55.516 He says, you won't admit it, but I know you're 0:07:55.556 --> 0:07:59.516 running around and Billy changed it too. He says, you 0:07:59.556 --> 0:08:02.316 won't admit it, but I know you're leaving town. That's 0:08:02.396 --> 0:08:04.756 not as that's not as powerful as you're running around. 0:08:05.556 --> 0:08:08.996 He says, you won't admit it, but I know you 0:08:09.316 --> 0:08:10.276 leave in town. 0:08:11.116 --> 0:08:13.916 She says one thanks for circ I. 0:08:13.956 --> 0:08:16.556 Don't love you anymore. 0:08:16.636 --> 0:08:20.276 As throws down the ring as she walks out the door. 0:08:21.516 --> 0:08:23.836 I think country music is supposed to be about real life, 0:08:23.916 --> 0:08:25.636 you know, And I try to reflect that in bout 0:08:25.636 --> 0:08:26.116 all Right. 0:08:26.916 --> 0:08:39.076 Gold Ring, which brings us to maybe the greatest country 0:08:39.116 --> 0:08:42.436 song of all time, certainly the saddest country song of 0:08:42.476 --> 0:08:44.636 all time, the song that made me get on a 0:08:44.716 --> 0:08:47.716 plane and go to Nashville. It was recorded by the 0:08:47.756 --> 0:08:50.516 great George Jones, one of the half dozen or so 0:08:50.716 --> 0:08:53.996 most iconic figures in the history of country music. You 0:08:54.196 --> 0:08:57.676 just heard him singing in Golden Ring. Jones was famously 0:08:57.756 --> 0:09:00.756 the husband of Tammy Wynett for a time, a hard living, 0:09:00.916 --> 0:09:04.876 dissolute megastar. Once, in the midst of an epic bender, 0:09:05.436 --> 0:09:08.116 jones family took his keys away, so he got on 0:09:08.236 --> 0:09:10.876 his writing mower and drove eight miles to the liquor 0:09:10.916 --> 0:09:13.436 store to get some whiskey. This was a man who 0:09:13.476 --> 0:09:16.276 could pour his fractured heart into his music like no 0:09:16.356 --> 0:09:20.796 one else. A half dozen times in his career, Jones 0:09:20.836 --> 0:09:24.116 found a song truly worthy of his talents, but it 0:09:24.276 --> 0:09:27.716 never got better than he stopped loving her. Today, I 0:09:27.796 --> 0:09:30.596 still remember when I first heard that song, and from 0:09:30.636 --> 0:09:33.916 the day I started thinking about this episode, I haven't 0:09:33.916 --> 0:09:35.196 been able to get it out of my head. 0:09:35.916 --> 0:09:43.556 He said, I'll love you till I die. She told him, 0:09:43.756 --> 0:09:56.476 you forgetting time As the years went slowly by, she 0:09:56.676 --> 0:09:57.916 still prayed. 0:09:57.716 --> 0:09:59.516 Up all his his mind. 0:10:02.556 --> 0:10:05.636 He kept her picture on his wall. 0:10:07.236 --> 0:10:08.876 Do I need to tell you who wrote that song? 0:10:09.796 --> 0:10:13.716 Bobby Braddock? Bobby Braddock is the king of tears. 0:10:15.996 --> 0:10:24.316 But he still loved him through it all, hoping she'd 0:10:24.436 --> 0:10:25.836 come back again. 0:10:27.796 --> 0:10:32.956 Oh man. One of the things that got me interested 0:10:32.996 --> 0:10:35.676 in sad songs was a story my sister in law, 0:10:35.756 --> 0:10:37.876 Bev told me. She and my brother live in the 0:10:37.916 --> 0:10:41.156 same area. I grew up in Waterloo County in southern Ontario, 0:10:41.916 --> 0:10:44.316 and a while ago she went to a performance by 0:10:44.396 --> 0:10:48.636 a local chamber choir thirty singers. They sang a cantata 0:10:48.716 --> 0:10:53.156 called Annalise by the British composer James Whitbourne, a choral 0:10:53.236 --> 0:10:56.836 composition which puts the words of n Frank's diary to music. 0:10:57.876 --> 0:10:59.276 I know this seems like a little bit of a 0:10:59.356 --> 0:11:02.836 digression from country music, but it's a really useful case 0:11:02.876 --> 0:11:07.636 study in understanding why some songs make us cry. The 0:11:07.756 --> 0:11:10.596 performance Bev told me about was on a Sunday afternoon, 0:11:11.116 --> 0:11:13.436 a free performance at the Public Library, which is a 0:11:13.556 --> 0:11:17.276 very utilitarian, very nineteen sixties building on Queen Street in 0:11:17.316 --> 0:11:21.556 downtown Kitchener. I've been there many times. Waaldwall carpet, that 0:11:21.716 --> 0:11:24.516 old books library smell, which I have to admit, I love. 0:11:25.516 --> 0:11:26.476 How many people are there. 0:11:26.716 --> 0:11:29.596 It's in their main reading room. They've moved around all 0:11:29.636 --> 0:11:35.596 the tables and one hundred one hundred and twentieth full, 0:11:35.676 --> 0:11:36.836 pretty much standing room only. 0:11:37.476 --> 0:11:39.436 Why light? 0:11:48.356 --> 0:11:52.116 As they're singing, I think, why is that also not singing? 0:11:53.716 --> 0:11:56.316 And then I look over and I think somebody else 0:11:56.436 --> 0:11:58.476 as a Frian, I'm not singing. That's odd because everybody 0:11:58.516 --> 0:11:59.036 else in their. 0:11:58.956 --> 0:11:59.636 Parts is singing. 0:12:00.876 --> 0:12:03.916 And I realized they were crying and they couldn't sing. 0:12:04.956 --> 0:12:07.756 Bev says, she cried pretty much through the entire performance. 0:12:08.396 --> 0:12:11.036 She was looking straight ahead because she didn't want people 0:12:11.076 --> 0:12:13.636 to see she was crying. But it didn't matter because 0:12:13.676 --> 0:12:17.716 everyone was crying. When the performance was over, Bev approached 0:12:17.756 --> 0:12:20.596 the stage to talk to the soloist, the woman singing 0:12:20.636 --> 0:12:21.916 Anne Frank's words. 0:12:22.196 --> 0:12:25.196 I just went up to her afterwards and congratulated her 0:12:25.276 --> 0:12:27.596 on the beauty of the piece then and her singing, 0:12:27.676 --> 0:12:30.556 And I said, and how did you manage to sing 0:12:31.076 --> 0:12:36.356 without crying? And she said, well, I couldn't look at Mark, 0:12:37.276 --> 0:12:40.436 the conductor, because he was wiping tears from his eyes, 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:42.836 and I had my back to the choir, so that 0:12:43.036 --> 0:12:45.316 was good. And I didn't look at anybody in the 0:12:45.396 --> 0:12:48.316 audience because they were crying. So I just looked up 0:12:48.356 --> 0:12:50.756 in the middle distance and I sang, it was a 0:12:50.796 --> 0:12:52.076 good thing. I hadn't memorized. 0:12:53.356 --> 0:12:55.316 I was at home in Canada when Bev told me 0:12:55.356 --> 0:12:58.316 that story, so I called up Mark, the conductor, and 0:12:58.436 --> 0:13:01.996 the soloist, whose name is Natasha. They're actually husband and wife. 0:13:02.516 --> 0:13:04.316 They only live a few minutes away from my brother, 0:13:04.916 --> 0:13:07.796 so they came over. Mark sat at the piano in 0:13:07.876 --> 0:13:10.676 the living room and Natasha stood behind him, and they 0:13:10.796 --> 0:13:13.436 performed one of the pieces from Analyst they did that 0:13:13.556 --> 0:13:14.316 day in the library. 0:13:14.596 --> 0:13:18.636 This is the last movement. It's called Anne's Meditation. I 0:13:18.716 --> 0:13:21.076 see the world, I see the world being slowly turned 0:13:21.756 --> 0:13:22.876 turned into a wilderness. 0:13:54.356 --> 0:13:57.436 Now I realized, this is a crazy question, because we're 0:13:57.436 --> 0:13:59.516 hearing a piece based on the diary of Anne Frank, 0:13:59.916 --> 0:14:02.356 which is one of the most heartbreaking stories from one 0:14:02.396 --> 0:14:05.796 of the most horrific moments in recent history. But why 0:14:05.996 --> 0:14:19.796 was everyone crying that day at the Kitchener library. The 0:14:19.916 --> 0:14:23.556 obvious reason is that the music is beautiful, so is 0:14:23.636 --> 0:14:28.876 Natasha's singing. The performance is also authentic. There's nothing contrived 0:14:28.916 --> 0:14:32.196 about it. It wasn't at Carnegie Hall. People weren't wearing 0:14:32.276 --> 0:14:35.316 suits and evening gowns. They were at the Kitchener Library 0:14:35.676 --> 0:14:38.236 and there's families getting books and kids running around, and 0:14:38.276 --> 0:14:40.836 everyone's on stacking chairs with the tables pushed off to 0:14:40.876 --> 0:14:45.556 the side. But here's the most important thing. Annalise is 0:14:45.996 --> 0:14:50.236 specific It's a cantata about the actual experiences of a 0:14:50.316 --> 0:15:01.956 real person. In her own words, Bev says that when 0:15:02.036 --> 0:15:05.596 she cried, she started thinking about her own family, Mennonites, 0:15:05.596 --> 0:15:09.636 who escaped terrible persecution in Russia. Natasha's says that as 0:15:09.676 --> 0:15:12.236 she sang about twelve year old an Frank, she was 0:15:12.316 --> 0:15:14.876 thinking about her own daughter, who was ten and who 0:15:14.956 --> 0:15:19.676 was sitting right next to Bev in the audience. Beauty 0:15:19.876 --> 0:15:23.596 and authenticity can create a mood. They set the stage. 0:15:24.116 --> 0:15:26.396 But I think the thing that pushes us over the 0:15:26.476 --> 0:15:31.396 top into tears is details. We cry when melancholy collides 0:15:31.676 --> 0:15:36.996 with specificity, and specificity is not something every genre does well. 0:15:40.636 --> 0:15:54.156 Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones, written by Keith Richards 0:15:54.196 --> 0:15:57.116 and Mick Jagger, It's a song about a conversation a 0:15:57.196 --> 0:16:00.156 man is having with a silent, suffering loved one. The 0:16:00.276 --> 0:16:03.236 story goes that Mick Jagger dreamt up the verses while 0:16:03.276 --> 0:16:05.956 sitting at the bedside of his then girlfriend Mary and Faithful, 0:16:06.196 --> 0:16:07.796 as she recovered from an overdose. 0:16:08.156 --> 0:16:20.236 Oh suffer, Bill, I watched. 0:16:19.996 --> 0:16:23.036 You suffer a dull, aching pain. Now you've decided to 0:16:23.116 --> 0:16:26.156 show me the same. No sweeping exit or off stage 0:16:26.236 --> 0:16:29.116 lines could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind. 0:16:30.036 --> 0:16:34.276 Wild Horses couldn't drag me away. Wild Wild Horses couldn't 0:16:34.316 --> 0:16:40.156 drag me away. Wild Horses was recorded first by the 0:16:40.236 --> 0:16:44.916 legendary Graham Parsons. Not long afterwards, Parsons died of an overdose, 0:16:45.356 --> 0:16:48.356 and his friend in protege, the country music singer Emmy 0:16:48.356 --> 0:16:51.236 Lou Harris, made a song in his memory. She wrote 0:16:51.236 --> 0:16:54.956 it with Bill Danoff. It's called from Boulder to Birmingham. 0:16:57.396 --> 0:17:04.156 I don't want a hee song. I got on the 0:17:04.356 --> 0:17:12.156 zepplin just a flow damn nods below me. 0:17:13.796 --> 0:17:15.596 But all that you can. 0:17:15.716 --> 0:17:19.436 Show me is a premium. 0:17:18.916 --> 0:17:26.956 Mascuy, And I don't only hear he said. 0:17:27.516 --> 0:17:28.156 Story. 0:17:28.956 --> 0:17:31.396 Someone who has suffered a terrible loss has gotten on 0:17:31.436 --> 0:17:34.476 a plane and she's so numbed by grief that she 0:17:34.516 --> 0:17:36.276 can no longer see those around her. 0:17:37.516 --> 0:17:38.556 Blessed time. 0:17:38.796 --> 0:17:39.796 I feel like this. 0:17:41.556 --> 0:17:45.116 I was in the wilderness in. 0:17:45.276 --> 0:17:47.756 The can was on FA. 0:17:50.716 --> 0:17:55.716 From Boulder to Birmingham, and wildhorses are both beautiful melancholy. 0:17:56.396 --> 0:17:59.156 They're about the same thing, the ties the living and 0:17:59.236 --> 0:18:02.676 the healthy have to those in pain. But which is 0:18:02.756 --> 0:18:06.916 the sadder song? I don't think there's any question. Wild 0:18:06.996 --> 0:18:11.956 horses is generic. Listen to how it starts childhood. Living 0:18:12.076 --> 0:18:14.636 is easy to do the things you wanted. I bought 0:18:14.676 --> 0:18:17.476 them for you. Graceless lady, you know who I am. 0:18:17.916 --> 0:18:20.236 You know I can't let you slide through my hands? 0:18:21.276 --> 0:18:25.796 What's going on? Any idea? What is Mickey yammering on about? Now? 0:18:25.916 --> 0:18:28.876 Compare that to the specificity of looking down from the 0:18:28.916 --> 0:18:32.316 airplane and seeing nothing but prairie. Then standing on a 0:18:32.396 --> 0:18:34.676 mountain and watching a canyon burn. 0:18:35.116 --> 0:18:43.516 Was our rapsle in the coosm. 0:18:46.396 --> 0:18:47.636 I would hold. 0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:58.436 Any say, race away from all. 0:19:02.116 --> 0:19:05.796 Act I could see. 0:19:09.716 --> 0:19:13.276 First, she references the great black spiritual rock my soul 0:19:13.316 --> 0:19:16.476 in the Bosom of Abraham. The Bosom of Abraham is 0:19:16.516 --> 0:19:20.436 where the righteous dead go while awaiting judgment. Then she sings, 0:19:21.036 --> 0:19:23.356 and I would also walk all the way from Boulder 0:19:23.516 --> 0:19:27.236 to Birmingham. Now she's locating her grief. I would make 0:19:27.276 --> 0:19:31.476 a pilgrimage from progressive, hippie liberal Remember this is nineteen 0:19:31.516 --> 0:19:35.836 seventy three, dope smoking Colorado back to the repressive heart 0:19:35.916 --> 0:19:39.796 of the Old South, just to see your face. Two 0:19:39.996 --> 0:19:44.356 completely different specific images, each with its own set of 0:19:44.436 --> 0:19:48.196 emotional triggers, and she's piled one on top of another. 0:19:49.876 --> 0:19:53.076 Mark Vornan, the music director of the choir in my hometown, 0:19:53.516 --> 0:19:55.716 says that there's a part in Annalise that does the 0:19:55.796 --> 0:19:57.796 same thing. Anne is. 0:19:58.676 --> 0:20:01.356 They're in hiding already, and she starts singing, and the 0:20:01.396 --> 0:20:04.156 composer has set these words in kind of a style 0:20:04.356 --> 0:20:08.996 of an American Sousa march, and so she's talking about 0:20:09.236 --> 0:20:11.316 in the bathtub and being scrubbed in the bathtub, and 0:20:11.356 --> 0:20:14.956 it's a SUSA we scrub, scrub, scrub ourselves in the 0:20:15.036 --> 0:20:19.636 tin right, very happy and optimistic music. 0:20:23.836 --> 0:20:26.356 And Frank in the bathtub to the tune of a 0:20:26.476 --> 0:20:29.996 SUSA march with the horrors of the Holocaust outside her door. 0:20:30.836 --> 0:20:34.756 Three absolutely concrete images in merciless combination. 0:20:35.196 --> 0:20:39.796 It just floored me every time I heard it, because 0:20:39.796 --> 0:20:41.556 it was so close to you know, our own daughter, 0:20:42.196 --> 0:20:44.636 you know, to think that she would have to create 0:20:44.756 --> 0:20:48.156 this kind of fiction in order to just get through 0:20:48.196 --> 0:20:48.476 the day. 0:20:49.436 --> 0:20:52.116 That's how you get tears. You make the story so 0:20:52.276 --> 0:20:55.276 real and the details so sharp, and you add in 0:20:55.436 --> 0:20:59.876 so many emotional triggers that the listener cannot escape. But 0:20:59.996 --> 0:21:03.196 it's a risky thing to do, right if you aren't 0:21:03.196 --> 0:21:06.476 a talented composer and you don't do a sensitive rendition 0:21:06.596 --> 0:21:10.116 of those lyrics, they could fall flat, could seem forced, 0:21:10.236 --> 0:21:13.756 even offensive. Far easier just to fall back on the 0:21:13.836 --> 0:21:18.676 blend cliche that wild horses couldn't drag you away. Country 0:21:18.756 --> 0:21:22.636 music makes people cry because it's not afraid to be specific. 0:21:25.556 --> 0:21:28.076 You know, she came to see him one last time, 0:21:31.676 --> 0:21:39.556 and we all wondered if she would, and it kept 0:21:39.636 --> 0:21:41.156 running through my mind. 0:21:44.196 --> 0:21:44.836 At this time. 0:21:57.396 --> 0:22:00.796 Bobby Braddock was born in Auburndale, Florida, a little town 0:22:00.876 --> 0:22:04.796 between Tampa and Orlando. His father grew Citrus. They were 0:22:04.876 --> 0:22:08.916 Church of Christ, just about the most fundamentalist of fundamentalist Christians. 0:22:09.876 --> 0:22:13.076 Braddock moved to Nashville in nineteen sixty four, just after 0:22:13.156 --> 0:22:16.036 getting married to seek his fortune in the music business. 0:22:16.796 --> 0:22:19.116 He wrote his memoirs a few years ago. It's called 0:22:19.316 --> 0:22:22.596 A Life on Nashville's Music Row. I read it before 0:22:22.596 --> 0:22:24.796 I went to see him, and the best way to 0:22:24.876 --> 0:22:28.716 describe the book is that it's exhausting. I don't mean 0:22:28.756 --> 0:22:31.036 that in a bad way, because I couldn't put it down. 0:22:31.516 --> 0:22:33.716 But so much happens. 0:22:34.596 --> 0:22:40.356 You've lived this incredibly tumultuous, emotionally tumultuous life. Yeah, And 0:22:40.516 --> 0:22:44.276 in the book it sounds like the first precipitating event 0:22:44.436 --> 0:22:47.316 is the death of your son. Braddock was touring with 0:22:47.396 --> 0:22:50.356 the country music legend Mardy Robbins at the time. He 0:22:50.436 --> 0:22:52.956 and his wife, Sue had a baby. The child was 0:22:53.076 --> 0:22:54.476 just a few months old when he died. 0:22:54.796 --> 0:22:56.556 Whenever I was in town, not on the road with 0:22:56.636 --> 0:23:00.116 Marty Robbins, every single day we'd buy fresh flowers, go 0:23:00.236 --> 0:23:01.996 put it on it's gray. We were just pathetic. 0:23:02.956 --> 0:23:05.716 He and Sue fight, She cheats on him, he cheats 0:23:05.756 --> 0:23:08.356 on her. They break up, they get back together, they 0:23:08.396 --> 0:23:12.236 have a daughter. The divorce, his ex wife mysteriously vanishes. 0:23:12.476 --> 0:23:15.836 He drinks a lot, gets into fights, owes enormous sums 0:23:15.876 --> 0:23:19.236 to the irs, has a major Boutwood depression, smokes a 0:23:19.276 --> 0:23:22.956 lot of pot, lurches from one volcanic event to the next, 0:23:23.556 --> 0:23:27.436 and through it all Braddock writes songs, hundreds of them. 0:23:28.836 --> 0:23:36.596 Your kind of tolerance for emotional volatility seems extraordinary. 0:23:40.476 --> 0:23:47.276 I guess tolerance is probably a pretty good word for it. 0:23:48.716 --> 0:23:50.876 Braddock walks over to the keyboard on the other side 0:23:50.876 --> 0:23:53.156 of the room. He begins to talk about an old 0:23:53.236 --> 0:23:56.716 girlfriend named Angela, who committed suicide by driving her car 0:23:56.836 --> 0:23:57.356 into the river. 0:23:58.196 --> 0:24:03.836 When Angela died, her mother took her baby to raise it. 0:24:05.356 --> 0:24:07.716 And she sent me a picture of the little girl 0:24:08.236 --> 0:24:11.956 Angela's when she's about four or five years ago, look 0:24:12.076 --> 0:24:15.116 just like her mom. Picture of her standing out in 0:24:15.156 --> 0:24:26.276 the arm And boy did a number on me, despite 0:24:26.676 --> 0:24:28.956 all the dusts. 0:24:32.236 --> 0:24:34.516 He wrote a song about that in twenty minutes. He 0:24:34.596 --> 0:24:36.916 played it for me. Then he played his favorite bit 0:24:36.956 --> 0:24:39.716 of a sad Randy Newman song. He played me a 0:24:39.796 --> 0:24:42.596 heartbreaking song he wrote once after getting up in the 0:24:42.636 --> 0:24:45.076 middle of the night and passing his lover in the hallway. 0:24:45.956 --> 0:24:49.676 And as he played one weeper after another, I realized 0:24:49.836 --> 0:24:54.116 that the thing I'd said about Braddock's tolerance for emotional volatility, 0:24:54.876 --> 0:24:58.316 tolerance was the wrong word. That was just me projecting 0:24:58.396 --> 0:25:01.956 my uptight Canadian self onto Braddock. But Braddock is from 0:25:02.036 --> 0:25:05.076 the musical side of the United States, where emotion is 0:25:05.156 --> 0:25:08.716 not something to be endured, it's something to be embraced. 0:25:10.156 --> 0:25:13.236 At one point, when cell phones were still analog, you 0:25:13.276 --> 0:25:16.116 could buy a scanner and listen in to other people's conversations, 0:25:16.636 --> 0:25:20.436 and that's what Braddock does. He can't help himself. A 0:25:20.516 --> 0:25:23.116 woman complains to her husband for an hour about his 0:25:23.236 --> 0:25:26.276 lack of affection from the parking lot at the grocery store. 0:25:26.836 --> 0:25:29.916 Then ask him what he wants and he says, maybe 0:25:29.996 --> 0:25:33.116 Apple Newton's. And then this is my favorite part I'm 0:25:33.196 --> 0:25:36.836 quoting now from Braddock's memoir. The conversation that truly touched 0:25:36.916 --> 0:25:40.156 me was between a man perhaps forty and his mother 0:25:40.276 --> 0:25:42.996 may Bee, late sixties, in which the sun opened up 0:25:42.996 --> 0:25:46.076 about sexual problems he was having with his wife. And 0:25:46.196 --> 0:25:49.676 I envied the sprinkling of profanities and the mother's invitation 0:25:49.876 --> 0:25:52.396 to come over to the house, son, and let's open 0:25:52.476 --> 0:25:54.996 a bottle of whisky and talk about it. Wishing I 0:25:55.156 --> 0:25:58.116 had that kind of easy and open communication with my mom. 0:25:58.756 --> 0:26:01.756 Then learning that the guy's mother was terminally ill with cancer. 0:26:02.876 --> 0:26:07.916 If you're keeping track, that's marital difficulty, sex, profanity, whisky mom, 0:26:08.076 --> 0:26:12.436 and terminal cancer in one conversation, and it truly touched 0:26:12.476 --> 0:26:18.716 him free. Do you know what Braddott's favorite song is 0:26:19.516 --> 0:26:22.276 Vince Gills go Rest High on that Mountain, which Gil 0:26:22.356 --> 0:26:24.716 wrote in memory both of his brother who died young 0:26:24.756 --> 0:26:27.756 of a heart attack and fellow country star Keith Whitley, 0:26:28.036 --> 0:26:29.356 who drank himself to death. 0:26:30.596 --> 0:26:34.996 O on. 0:26:39.276 --> 0:26:39.876 Song you. 0:26:44.756 --> 0:26:49.636 Is dumb, dude, Oh my god. 0:26:49.716 --> 0:26:53.676 When Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs and Patty Lovelace are 0:26:53.676 --> 0:26:56.556 singing harmony on that thing, I go nuts. It still 0:26:56.676 --> 0:27:00.316 tears me up. Knowing that it's about death, and Vince 0:27:00.356 --> 0:27:03.556 wrote it about Keith Whitley and then about his own brother, 0:27:04.436 --> 0:27:06.556 and just the emotion that sending that song, It's just 0:27:06.716 --> 0:27:09.756 it's just powerful day. 0:27:10.796 --> 0:27:24.476 Left us gathered round agree degree we shock, goody. 0:27:28.236 --> 0:27:28.716 Faces. 0:27:31.076 --> 0:27:35.476