WEBVTT - Encore: The King of Tears 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.596 Pushkin. I started listening to country music when I was 0:00:22.636 --> 0:00:25.916 about twelve or thirteen. This was rural Ontario in the 0:00:25.956 --> 0:00:28.916 nineteen seventies. Everyone else my age was listening to The 0:00:28.916 --> 0:00:32.796 Eagles or Fleetwood Mac or some properly Canadian rock band 0:00:32.836 --> 0:00:37.196 like Rush. But for some inexplicable reason, I, a British 0:00:37.316 --> 0:00:40.916 Jamaican kid marooned in the Canadian heartland, found solace in 0:00:40.956 --> 0:00:44.916 the music coming out of Nashville. Lots of Johnny cash Lorette, Lynn, 0:00:45.036 --> 0:00:48.276 Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings. I can still sing almost all 0:00:48.276 --> 0:00:52.756 of Good Hearted Woman from memory, and of course George Jones. 0:00:53.556 --> 0:00:55.676 I still remember the first time I heard the grand 0:00:55.716 --> 0:01:00.636 tour step right up, come on in, if you'd like 0:01:01.076 --> 0:01:06.076 to take the Grand Tour of a lonely house that 0:01:06.236 --> 0:01:11.316 once was home, sweet home, and then the amazing lines, 0:01:11.916 --> 0:01:15.196 I have nothing here to sell you, just some things 0:01:15.316 --> 0:01:18.196 that I will tell you, some things I know will 0:01:18.316 --> 0:01:22.556 chill you to the bone. To my Maudlin thirteen year 0:01:22.556 --> 0:01:25.636 old heart, the line some things I know will chill 0:01:25.676 --> 0:01:28.996 you to the bone was so fantastic, so over the top, 0:01:29.036 --> 0:01:32.356 so bonkers, and just thinking about that lonely house that 0:01:32.476 --> 0:01:35.436 was once home, sweet home brought tears to my eyes. 0:01:36.316 --> 0:01:39.796 Pop music, particularly the pop music of that era, just 0:01:39.876 --> 0:01:43.276 couldn't compete with that. I carried George Jones in my 0:01:43.356 --> 0:01:46.156 heart for a very long time until the point that 0:01:46.196 --> 0:01:49.556 I decided it was time to revisit the question what 0:01:49.836 --> 0:01:53.636 exactly is country music doing when it makes you cry? 0:01:55.316 --> 0:01:58.516 In Nashville, Tennessee, there is a songwriter named Bobby Braddock. 0:01:59.116 --> 0:02:02.636 He's in his seventies, maybe five foot seven, bald head, 0:02:03.156 --> 0:02:05.916 scruffy beard, wiry, like if you messed with them in 0:02:05.956 --> 0:02:09.556 a bar, you'd probably lose. The most striking thing about 0:02:09.636 --> 0:02:12.156 him is his eyes, which are the palest and most 0:02:12.236 --> 0:02:15.996 intense shade of blue. He wears sunglasses a lot, and 0:02:16.036 --> 0:02:18.076 it's almost as if he needs to protect the world 0:02:18.116 --> 0:02:22.116 from that look there. I met him on a music 0:02:22.196 --> 0:02:24.956 row in Nashville. We had lunch, and then we sat 0:02:24.996 --> 0:02:26.996 in one of the writer's rooms in the Sony building, 0:02:27.516 --> 0:02:30.996 piano in the corner, couches to one side, and he 0:02:31.076 --> 0:02:33.516 talked about his education in the music business. 0:02:33.916 --> 0:02:36.516 I think I always had the reputation as being kind 0:02:36.516 --> 0:02:39.356 of a quirky writer, maybe a little left field. 0:02:40.276 --> 0:02:42.596 The turning point in Braddock's career was a song you've 0:02:42.636 --> 0:02:46.236 probably heard of. It was performed by Tammy Wynette back 0:02:46.276 --> 0:02:49.196 when she was the reigning Queen of country music nineteen 0:02:49.276 --> 0:02:51.836 sixty eight, about a mom who had to spell out 0:02:51.836 --> 0:02:56.156 the word dvo rcee so her kids wouldn't know their 0:02:56.196 --> 0:02:57.356 parents were splitting up. 0:02:57.956 --> 0:02:59.196 So dw r C. 0:03:00.076 --> 0:03:05.196 Yeah wrote this, did it? Demo on it and no tikers, 0:03:05.276 --> 0:03:07.156 nobody did it, nobody would recorded. 0:03:08.116 --> 0:03:10.836 D iv o r C was a song with a gimmick. 0:03:11.476 --> 0:03:14.436 Braddick did a lot of gimmicky songs back then. No 0:03:14.476 --> 0:03:17.556 one wanted this one. So Braddick went to a friend 0:03:17.596 --> 0:03:20.356 and longtime collaborator, Curly Putman, So. 0:03:20.396 --> 0:03:23.316 I said, well, why is nobody recording? He said, I 0:03:23.316 --> 0:03:28.236 think around the important part of your song said, sad song, 0:03:28.316 --> 0:03:33.156 and your melodies on that part is too happy. What 0:03:33.236 --> 0:03:39.956 I was doing was, oh, I wish that could stop 0:03:40.276 --> 0:03:46.076 this lifty s a little bit like a like a 0:03:46.076 --> 0:03:49.556 soap commercial. I said, well, what would you do? And 0:03:49.676 --> 0:03:53.556 he gave a guitar and he had this really mournful 0:03:53.636 --> 0:03:57.676 singing style. Tammy Whenette was a big fan of Curly singing, 0:03:57.796 --> 0:03:59.996 she left her singing because he had I mean, he 0:04:00.156 --> 0:04:03.596 just he singing was just so sad. It gives it 0:04:03.676 --> 0:04:04.036 a guitar and. 0:04:04.116 --> 0:04:15.356 Said, oh, wish that we could start this, So I said, 0:04:16.316 --> 0:04:18.076 just get your guitar, let's put it on. 0:04:18.156 --> 0:04:18.436 Take what. 0:04:20.156 --> 0:04:22.556 D I V O r C went to number one. 0:04:22.716 --> 0:04:26.116 It was Bobby Braddock's first great exercise in how to 0:04:26.116 --> 0:04:32.076 make people cry, and from then on things just got sadder. 0:04:34.796 --> 0:04:38.436 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:04:38.676 --> 0:04:47.876 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:04:47.916 --> 0:04:51.036 about something that has never made sense to me. Maybe 0:04:51.036 --> 0:04:53.956 it's because I'm a Canadian, or maybe Americans puzzle about 0:04:53.996 --> 0:04:57.196 this too. I'm talking about the bright line that divides 0:04:57.236 --> 0:05:02.196 American society, not the color line or the ideological line. 0:05:03.316 --> 0:05:12.116 I'm talking about the sad song line. I don't know 0:05:12.156 --> 0:05:15.116 why people don't talk about this more because it's weird. 0:05:15.996 --> 0:05:18.596 For the sake of argument, let's use the rock magazine 0:05:18.676 --> 0:05:20.876 Rolling Stone's list of the best songs of all time, 0:05:21.116 --> 0:05:25.436 the top fifty. These are the critics choices. Hotel California 0:05:25.476 --> 0:05:28.436 by The Eagles comes in at forty nine, which, as 0:05:28.436 --> 0:05:30.756 far as I can tell, is a song about drugs. 0:05:31.196 --> 0:05:35.636 Tooty Fruity by Little Richard at forty three. Tutty Fruity, 0:05:36.156 --> 0:05:39.996 which I remind you has is its signature lyric tooty fruity, 0:05:40.076 --> 0:05:43.956 oh ruddy touty fruity, Oh rudy tooty fruity, Oh rudy 0:05:44.436 --> 0:05:48.036 tooty fruity, oh rudy Wop Bop alo bop a loop 0:05:48.116 --> 0:05:53.516 bam boom. There's Dancing in the Street at forty light, 0:05:53.596 --> 0:05:58.036 My Fire Be My Baby, Nirvana's smells like teen Spirit, 0:05:58.556 --> 0:06:01.756 Derek and the Dominoes Leila. There are songs about wanting 0:06:01.796 --> 0:06:06.116 to have sex, songs about having sex, songs about getting high, 0:06:06.116 --> 0:06:09.636 presumably after having sex. Number one song on the list 0:06:09.956 --> 0:06:13.276 like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. Ah, You've gone 0:06:13.316 --> 0:06:16.276 to the finest schools, all right, miss Lonely, but you 0:06:16.396 --> 0:06:19.436 know you only used to get juiced in it. Nobody's 0:06:19.436 --> 0:06:21.196 ever taught you how to live out on the street, 0:06:21.596 --> 0:06:23.476 and now you're gonna have to get used to it. 0:06:24.516 --> 0:06:26.516 I think that's a song about someone who dropped out 0:06:26.516 --> 0:06:29.516 of Harvard. The number one rock song of all time 0:06:29.836 --> 0:06:37.156 is about dropping out of Harvard. In all of those 0:06:37.156 --> 0:06:41.076 fifty songs, nobody dies after a long illness, No marriage 0:06:41.076 --> 0:06:45.196 disintegrates nobody's killed on a battlefield. No mother grieves for 0:06:45.236 --> 0:06:48.916 a son. The closest that any song in Rolling Stone's 0:06:48.956 --> 0:06:52.476 list comes to being truly sad is Smokey Robinson's Tracks 0:06:52.476 --> 0:06:55.516 of My Tears, which is first of all, number fifty, 0:06:55.756 --> 0:06:57.556 so they put the sad song at the bottom of 0:06:57.556 --> 0:07:00.476 the list. And secondly, it's about a guy at a 0:07:00.516 --> 0:07:04.996 party in their moments of greatest travail. The protagonists of 0:07:05.076 --> 0:07:09.476 rock and roll's sad songs still get to go to parties. Now. 0:07:09.636 --> 0:07:12.716 Just turn on a country music station, especially a traditional 0:07:12.756 --> 0:07:16.836 country music station, and listen. It's like a different universe. 0:07:17.476 --> 0:07:20.636 Marriage is going to hell, people staring into their shot 0:07:20.676 --> 0:07:23.836 glass in a honky tonk, people dying young. If you 0:07:23.916 --> 0:07:28.436 ever heard John Prine's Unweed Fathers, it's a devastating bit 0:07:28.476 --> 0:07:32.556 of songwriting about a teenage mom fleeing town. He sings 0:07:32.596 --> 0:07:34.116 it with his wife Rachel. 0:07:34.276 --> 0:07:45.236 Almost so Verio man smoking man Bell, Now come in, 0:07:45.356 --> 0:07:46.556 Lolla bad. 0:07:48.556 --> 0:07:57.956 Your daddy meant to hurt you, ever, it's just don live. 0:07:59.476 --> 0:08:00.636 That you got his. 0:08:03.916 --> 0:08:07.476 Those last two lines. Your daddy never meant to hurt 0:08:07.516 --> 0:08:10.236 you ever. He just don't live here. But you've got 0:08:10.276 --> 0:08:15.356 his eyes that's brutal, black subad dream. 0:08:17.356 --> 0:08:17.636 All on. 0:08:17.796 --> 0:08:24.316 We fove One half of the country, the rock music part, 0:08:24.756 --> 0:08:27.876 wants their music to be hymns to extra version. The 0:08:27.916 --> 0:08:31.076 other half wants to talk about real life dramas and 0:08:31.156 --> 0:08:35.036 have a good cry. I don't get it. By the way, 0:08:35.316 --> 0:08:37.876 you know who wrote that unwed father's song with John Prime, 0:08:39.156 --> 0:08:46.996 Bobby Braddock? Or maybe you've heard this another classic recorded 0:08:46.996 --> 0:08:49.996 by Tammy Whynatt Golden. 0:08:51.796 --> 0:08:53.076 Good, Long Time. 0:08:54.836 --> 0:09:00.956 Arcas Loud the bung. 0:09:00.276 --> 0:09:04.796 Bus Golden Ring. It follows a couple from first love 0:09:04.876 --> 0:09:07.476 to the breakup of their marriage by tracing the journey 0:09:07.516 --> 0:09:12.396 of their wedding ring from chop to pawnshop. It's a weeper. 0:09:13.036 --> 0:09:18.676 Who wrote it, Bobby Braddock, and today, forty years after 0:09:18.716 --> 0:09:21.396 he wrote it, Braddock is still mad about a one 0:09:21.516 --> 0:09:24.196 word change made by the song's producer of Billy Cheryl, 0:09:24.556 --> 0:09:28.276 because that made his song one crucial degree less sad. 0:09:28.796 --> 0:09:31.396 But we had He says, you won't admit it, but 0:09:31.396 --> 0:09:34.556 I know you're running around and Billy changed it too. 0:09:35.396 --> 0:09:37.236 He says, you won't admit it, but I know you're 0:09:37.316 --> 0:09:40.156 leaving town. That's not as that's not as powerful as 0:09:40.316 --> 0:09:41.116 you're running around. 0:09:41.876 --> 0:09:45.396 He says, you won't admit it, but I know you 0:09:45.596 --> 0:09:46.676 leave in town. 0:09:47.436 --> 0:09:52.196 She says one, thanks for circ I don't love you anymore. 0:09:52.956 --> 0:09:56.636 It throws down the ring as she walks out the door. 0:09:57.836 --> 0:10:00.196 I think country music is supposed to be about real life, 0:10:00.196 --> 0:10:02.436 you know, and I try to reflect that about all right. 0:10:03.236 --> 0:10:15.596 Gold which brings us to maybe the greatest country song 0:10:15.636 --> 0:10:19.236 of all time, certainly the saddest country song of all time, 0:10:19.676 --> 0:10:21.436 the song that made me get on a plane and 0:10:21.436 --> 0:10:25.196 go to Nashville. It was recorded by the great George Jones, 0:10:25.716 --> 0:10:28.196 one of the half dozen or so most iconic figures 0:10:28.196 --> 0:10:30.996 in the history of country music. You just heard him 0:10:30.996 --> 0:10:34.716 singing in Golden Ring. Jones was famously the husband of 0:10:34.756 --> 0:10:39.716 Tammy Wynett for a time, a hard living, dissolute megastar. Once, 0:10:39.876 --> 0:10:42.756 in the midst of an epic bender, jones family took 0:10:42.796 --> 0:10:45.396 his keys away, so he got on his riding mower 0:10:45.436 --> 0:10:47.716 and drove eight miles to the liquor store to get 0:10:47.716 --> 0:10:50.396 some whiskey. This was a man who could pour his 0:10:50.516 --> 0:10:54.556 fractured heart into his music like no one else. A 0:10:54.596 --> 0:10:57.756 half dozen times in his career, Jones found a song 0:10:57.876 --> 0:11:01.316 truly worthy of his talents, but it never got better 0:11:01.356 --> 0:11:04.836 than he stopped loving her. Today, I still remember when 0:11:04.836 --> 0:11:07.516 I first heard that song, and from the day I 0:11:07.556 --> 0:11:10.676 started thinking about this episode, I haven't been able to 0:11:10.676 --> 0:11:11.556 get it out of my head. 0:11:12.236 --> 0:11:19.596 He said, I'll love you till I die. She told 0:11:19.716 --> 0:11:31.756 him you forgetting time. As the years went slowly by, 0:11:32.756 --> 0:11:35.796 She's still prayed up all his his wine. 0:11:38.876 --> 0:11:41.916 He kept her pictures on his wall. 0:11:43.516 --> 0:11:45.276 Do I need to tell you who wrote that song? 0:11:46.116 --> 0:11:50.076 Bobby Braddock? Bobby Braddock is the king of tears. 0:11:52.316 --> 0:12:01.156 But he still loved through it all, hoping she'd come 0:12:01.476 --> 0:12:02.196 back again. 0:12:04.116 --> 0:12:13.036 Oh man. One of the things that got me interested 0:12:13.076 --> 0:12:16.116 in sad songs was a story my sister in law, Bev, 0:12:16.196 --> 0:12:18.436 told me. She and my brother live in the same area. 0:12:18.476 --> 0:12:22.036 I grew up in Waterloo County in southern Ontario, and 0:12:22.116 --> 0:12:24.516 a while ago she went to a performance by a 0:12:24.556 --> 0:12:28.996 local chamber choir thirty singers. They sang a cantata called 0:12:29.036 --> 0:12:33.916 Annalise by the British composer James Whitbourne, a choral composition 0:12:34.156 --> 0:12:36.956 which puts the words of an Frank's diary to music. 0:12:37.956 --> 0:12:39.356 I know this seems like a little bit of a 0:12:39.396 --> 0:12:42.916 digression from country music, but it's a really useful case 0:12:42.916 --> 0:12:47.756 study in understanding why some songs make us cry. The 0:12:47.796 --> 0:12:50.716 performance Bev told me about was on a Sunday afternoon, 0:12:51.156 --> 0:12:53.516 a free performance of the Public Library, which is a 0:12:53.596 --> 0:12:57.356 very utilitarian, very nineteen sixties building on Queen Street in 0:12:57.396 --> 0:13:01.636 downtown Kitchener. I've been there many times, waldewell carpet, that 0:13:01.796 --> 0:13:04.636 old books library smell, which I have to admit, I love. 0:13:05.596 --> 0:13:06.596 How many people are there. 0:13:06.796 --> 0:13:09.796 It's in their main reading room, moved around all the 0:13:09.796 --> 0:13:15.996 tables and one hundred, one hundred and twentieth full, pretty 0:13:16.036 --> 0:13:16.956 much standing room only. 0:13:17.556 --> 0:13:31.476 Why as they're singing, I think, why is that also 0:13:31.636 --> 0:13:35.396 not singing? And then I look over and I think 0:13:35.796 --> 0:13:38.196 somebody else as Aprian, I'm not singing. That's odd because 0:13:38.196 --> 0:13:41.556 everybody else in their parts is singing. And I realized 0:13:41.596 --> 0:13:43.996 they were crying and they couldn't sing. 0:13:44.996 --> 0:13:47.836 Bev says she cried pretty much through the entire performance. 0:13:48.436 --> 0:13:51.076 She was looking straight ahead because she didn't want people 0:13:51.116 --> 0:13:53.716 to see she was crying, but it didn't matter because 0:13:53.716 --> 0:13:57.796 everyone was crying. When the performance was over, Bev approached 0:13:57.796 --> 0:14:00.676 the stage to talk to the soloist, the woman singing 0:14:00.676 --> 0:14:02.196 Anne Frank's words. 0:14:02.276 --> 0:14:05.276 I just went up to her afterwards and congratulated her 0:14:05.316 --> 0:14:07.716 on the beauty of the piece then and her singing, 0:14:07.716 --> 0:14:11.996 And I said, and how did you to sing without crying? 0:14:12.436 --> 0:14:17.436 And she said, well, I couldn't look at Mark the 0:14:17.476 --> 0:14:21.116 conductor because he was wiping tears from his eyes, and 0:14:21.156 --> 0:14:23.436 I had my back to the choir, so that was good. 0:14:23.876 --> 0:14:26.756 And I didn't look at anybody in the audience because 0:14:26.756 --> 0:14:28.556 they were crying. So I just looked up in the 0:14:28.596 --> 0:14:31.196 middle distance and I sang, it was a good thing. 0:14:31.236 --> 0:14:32.116 I hadn't memorized. 0:14:33.436 --> 0:14:35.396 I was at home in Canada when Bev told me 0:14:35.436 --> 0:14:38.436 that story, so I called up Mark the conductor, and 0:14:38.476 --> 0:14:42.116 the soloist, whose name is Natasha. They're actually husband and wife. 0:14:42.556 --> 0:14:44.396 They only live a few minutes away from my brother. 0:14:44.956 --> 0:14:47.916 So they came over. Mark sat at the piano in 0:14:47.916 --> 0:14:50.796 the living room and Natasha stood behind him, and they 0:14:50.836 --> 0:14:53.436 performed one of the pieces from Annalyst that they did 0:14:53.436 --> 0:14:54.436 that day in the library. 0:14:54.636 --> 0:14:58.716 This is the last movement. It's called Anne's Meditation. I 0:14:58.796 --> 0:15:01.156 see the world, I see the world being slowly turned 0:15:01.796 --> 0:15:11.316 turn into a wilderness. 0:15:34.396 --> 0:15:37.476 Now I realized this is a crazy question, because we're 0:15:37.516 --> 0:15:39.556 hearing a piece based on the Diary of Anne Frank, 0:15:39.956 --> 0:15:42.436 which is one of the most heartbreaking stories from one 0:15:42.436 --> 0:15:45.916 of the most horrific moments in recent history. But why 0:15:46.036 --> 0:15:59.876 was everyone crying that day at the Kitchener Library. The 0:15:59.956 --> 0:16:03.636 obvious reason is that the music is beautiful, so is 0:16:03.716 --> 0:16:08.876 Natasha's singing. The performance is also authentic. There's nothing contrived 0:16:08.876 --> 0:16:12.276 about it. It wasn't at Carnegie Hall. People weren't wearing 0:16:12.356 --> 0:16:15.476 suits and evening gowns. They were at the Kitchener Library. 0:16:15.756 --> 0:16:18.316 And whose family's getting books and kids running around and 0:16:18.316 --> 0:16:20.916 everyone's on stacking chairs with the tables pushed off to 0:16:20.956 --> 0:16:26.756 the side. But here's the most important thing annelis is specific. 0:16:27.636 --> 0:16:31.036 It's a cantata about the actual experiences of a real person. 0:16:31.356 --> 0:16:42.596 In her own words, Bev says that when she cried, 0:16:42.796 --> 0:16:46.236 she started thinking about her own family, Mennonites, who escaped 0:16:46.356 --> 0:16:50.116 terrible persecution in Russia. Natasha says that as she sang 0:16:50.116 --> 0:16:52.876 about twelve year old and Frank, she was thinking about 0:16:52.876 --> 0:16:55.476 her own daughter, who was ten and who was sitting 0:16:55.676 --> 0:17:00.876 right next to Bev in the audience. Beauty and authenticity 0:17:01.276 --> 0:17:04.476 can create a mood. They set the stage. But I 0:17:04.516 --> 0:17:07.036 think the thing that pushes us over the top into 0:17:07.076 --> 0:17:12.756 tears is details. We cry when melancholy collides with specificity, 0:17:13.756 --> 0:17:34.836 and specificity is not something every genre does well. Wild 0:17:34.916 --> 0:17:38.196 Horses by the Rolling Stones, written by Keith Richards and 0:17:38.276 --> 0:17:41.316 Mick Jagger. It's a song about a conversation a man 0:17:41.436 --> 0:17:44.556 is having with a silent, suffering loved one. The story 0:17:44.596 --> 0:17:47.476 goes that Mick Jagger dreamt up the verses while sitting 0:17:47.476 --> 0:17:49.916 at the bedside of his then girlfriend Mary and Faithful, 0:17:50.156 --> 0:17:55.156 as she recovered from an overdose. Oh love you suffer. 0:17:58.636 --> 0:17:58.916 Bell. 0:18:03.356 --> 0:18:06.476 I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain. Now you've 0:18:06.476 --> 0:18:09.556 decided to show me the same. No sweeping exit or 0:18:09.596 --> 0:18:12.396 off stage lines could make me feel bitter or treat 0:18:12.436 --> 0:18:17.316 you unkind. Wild Horses couldn't drag me away. Wild Wild 0:18:17.356 --> 0:18:23.876 Horses couldn't drag me away. Wild Horses was recorded first 0:18:23.916 --> 0:18:28.196 by the legendary Graham Parsons. Not long afterwards, Parsons died 0:18:28.236 --> 0:18:31.396 of an overdose, and his friend in protege, the country 0:18:31.476 --> 0:18:34.396 music singer Emmy Lou Harris, made a song in his memory. 0:18:34.796 --> 0:18:38.076 She wrote it with Bill Danoff. It's called from Boulder 0:18:38.196 --> 0:18:41.156 to Birmingham. 0:18:41.356 --> 0:18:47.796 I don't want a hee, so. 0:18:47.356 --> 0:18:50.476 I got on the zep plane just to flow. 0:18:53.836 --> 0:19:00.236 Damn nolder me, but all that you can show me, 0:19:00.916 --> 0:19:03.316 he's a pre masco. 0:19:09.276 --> 0:19:12.116 I don't want to hear said story. 0:19:12.916 --> 0:19:15.356 Someone who has suffered a terrible loss has gotten on 0:19:15.396 --> 0:19:18.436 a plane and she's so numbed by grief that she 0:19:18.476 --> 0:19:20.316 can no longer see those around her. 0:19:21.436 --> 0:19:23.756 Blessed time a fool like this. 0:19:25.516 --> 0:19:31.036 I was in the wilderness and again those on. 0:19:31.316 --> 0:19:39.676 The from Boulder to Birmingham and wildhorses are both beautiful melancholy. 0:19:40.316 --> 0:19:43.116 They're about the same thing, the ties the living and 0:19:43.156 --> 0:19:46.676 the healthy have to those in pain. But which is 0:19:46.716 --> 0:19:50.916 the sadder song? I don't think there's any question. Wild 0:19:50.916 --> 0:19:55.956 horses is generic. Listen to how it starts. Childhood. Living 0:19:56.036 --> 0:19:58.636 is easy to do the things you wanted. I bought 0:19:58.636 --> 0:20:01.516 them for you. Graceless lady. You know who I am. 0:20:01.876 --> 0:20:04.396 You know I can't let you slide through my hands. 0:20:05.236 --> 0:20:09.796 What's going on? Any idea? What is Mickey hammering on about? Now? 0:20:09.876 --> 0:20:12.836 Compare that to the specificity of looking down from the 0:20:12.876 --> 0:20:16.316 airplane and seeing nothing but prairie. Then standing on a 0:20:16.356 --> 0:20:18.636 mountain and watching a canyon burn. 0:20:19.076 --> 0:20:26.396 Was our rackassle. 0:20:26.636 --> 0:20:27.916 In the bosom of a. 0:20:30.316 --> 0:20:31.596 I would hold. 0:20:35.516 --> 0:20:42.596 Race away from bald. 0:20:45.516 --> 0:20:46.796 About at sea. 0:20:49.036 --> 0:20:49.716 I could see. 0:20:53.636 --> 0:20:57.196 First she references the great black spiritual rock my soul 0:20:57.276 --> 0:21:00.396 in the bosom of Abraham. The bosom of Abraham is 0:21:00.476 --> 0:21:04.356 where the righteous dead go while awaiting judgment. Then she sings, 0:21:04.956 --> 0:21:07.316 and I would also walk all the way from Boulder 0:21:07.436 --> 0:21:11.196 to Birmingham. Now she's locating her grief. I would make 0:21:11.236 --> 0:21:15.396 a pilgrimage from progressive hippie liberal. Remember this is nineteen 0:21:15.436 --> 0:21:19.756 seventy three, dope smoking Colorado back to the repressive heart 0:21:19.836 --> 0:21:23.716 of the old South, just to see your face. Two 0:21:23.956 --> 0:21:28.316 completely different specific images, each with its own set of 0:21:28.356 --> 0:21:32.156 emotional triggers, and she's piled one on top of another. 0:21:33.796 --> 0:21:36.996 Mark Vornan, the music director of the choir in My hometown, 0:21:37.436 --> 0:21:39.636 says that there's a part in Analyse that does the 0:21:39.716 --> 0:21:41.756 same thing Anne is. 0:21:42.596 --> 0:21:45.316 They're in hiding already, and she starts singing, and the 0:21:45.316 --> 0:21:48.076 composer has set these words in kind of a style 0:21:48.276 --> 0:21:52.996 of an American sousa march, and so she's talking about 0:21:53.036 --> 0:21:55.156 being in the bathtub and being scrubbed in the bathtub, 0:21:55.196 --> 0:21:58.716 and it's a Susa. We scrub, scrubs, scrub ourselves in 0:21:58.876 --> 0:22:03.876 La Tinta right, very happy and optimistic music. 0:22:07.756 --> 0:22:10.316 And Frank in the bathtub to the tune of a 0:22:10.396 --> 0:22:13.916 Sousa march with the horrors of the Holocaust outside her door. 0:22:14.796 --> 0:22:18.676 Three absolutely concrete images in merciless combination. 0:22:19.116 --> 0:22:23.716 It just floored me every time I heard it because 0:22:23.756 --> 0:22:26.316 it was so close to our own daughter, you know, 0:22:26.596 --> 0:22:29.076 to think that she would have to create this kind 0:22:29.156 --> 0:22:32.396 of fiction in order to just get through the day. 0:22:33.356 --> 0:22:36.036 That's how you get tears. You make the story so 0:22:36.236 --> 0:22:39.196 real and the details so sharp, and you add in 0:22:39.356 --> 0:22:43.836 so many emotional triggers that the listener cannot escape. But 0:22:43.956 --> 0:22:47.116 it's a risky thing to do, right If you aren't 0:22:47.116 --> 0:22:50.436 a talented composer, and you don't do a sensitive rendition 0:22:50.556 --> 0:22:54.076 of those lyrics, they could fall flat, could seem forced, 0:22:54.156 --> 0:22:57.716 even offensive. Far easier just to fall back on the 0:22:57.796 --> 0:23:02.596 blend cliche that wild horses couldn't drag you away. Country 0:23:02.716 --> 0:23:06.556 music makes people cry because it's not afraid to be specific. 0:23:09.476 --> 0:23:11.996 You know, she came to see him one last time, 0:23:15.636 --> 0:23:23.476 and we all wondered if she would, and it kept 0:23:23.556 --> 0:23:24.396 brought in through. 0:23:24.316 --> 0:23:25.036 My mind. 0:23:28.276 --> 0:23:28.756 This time. 0:23:41.356 --> 0:23:44.756 Bobby Braddock was born in Auburndale, Florida, a little town 0:23:44.796 --> 0:23:48.716 between Tampa and Orlando. His father grew Citrus. They were 0:23:48.836 --> 0:23:52.876 Church of Christ, just about the most fundamentalist of fundamentalist Christians. 0:23:53.836 --> 0:23:56.996 Braddock moved to Nashville in nineteen sixty four, just after 0:23:57.076 --> 0:23:59.956 getting married, to seek his fortune in the music business. 0:24:00.716 --> 0:24:03.036 He wrote his memoirs a few years ago. It's called 0:24:03.276 --> 0:24:06.516 A Life on Nashville's Music Row. I read it before 0:24:06.556 --> 0:24:08.676 I went to see him, and the best way to 0:24:08.756 --> 0:24:12.636 describe the book is that it's exhausting. I don't mean 0:24:12.716 --> 0:24:14.956 that in a bad way because I couldn't put it down. 0:24:15.476 --> 0:24:17.636 But so much happens. 0:24:18.516 --> 0:24:24.316 You've lived this incredibly tumultuous, emotionally tumultuous lit Yeah, And 0:24:24.436 --> 0:24:28.196 in the book it sounds like the first precipitating event 0:24:28.356 --> 0:24:29.236 is the death of your son. 0:24:30.276 --> 0:24:33.076 Braddock was touring with the country music legend Mardy Robbins 0:24:33.116 --> 0:24:35.676 at the time. He and his wife, Sue had a baby. 0:24:36.316 --> 0:24:38.396 The child was just a few months old when he died. 0:24:38.716 --> 0:24:40.516 Whenever I was in town, not on the road with 0:24:40.596 --> 0:24:44.076 Marty Robbins, every single day we'd buy fresh flowers, go 0:24:44.156 --> 0:24:45.956 put it on. It's gray. We were just pathetic. 0:24:46.916 --> 0:24:49.636 He and Sue fight. She cheats on him. He cheats 0:24:49.676 --> 0:24:52.316 on her, they break up, they get back together, they 0:24:52.356 --> 0:24:56.196 have a daughter, they divorce. His ex wife mysteriously vanishes. 0:24:56.436 --> 0:24:59.756 He drinks a lot, gets into fights, owes enormous sums 0:24:59.796 --> 0:25:03.116 to the irs, has a major bout with depression, smokes 0:25:03.156 --> 0:25:06.436 a lot of pot, lurches from one volcanic event to 0:25:06.516 --> 0:25:10.996 the next, and through it all, Braddock writes songs, hundreds 0:25:11.076 --> 0:25:11.356 of them. 0:25:12.756 --> 0:25:20.516 You were kind of tolerance for emotional volatility seems extraordinary. 0:25:24.436 --> 0:25:25.196 I guess. 0:25:28.276 --> 0:25:31.196 Tolerance is probably a pretty good word for it. 0:25:32.676 --> 0:25:34.796 Braddock walks over to the keyboard on the other side 0:25:34.836 --> 0:25:37.116 of the room. He begins to talk about an old 0:25:37.156 --> 0:25:40.676 girlfriend named Angela, who committed suicide by driving her car 0:25:40.756 --> 0:25:41.276 into the river. 0:25:42.116 --> 0:25:47.796 When Angela died, her mother took her baby to raise it. 0:25:49.316 --> 0:25:51.636 And she sent me a picture with a little girl, 0:25:52.156 --> 0:25:55.356 Angela's child when she was about four or five years old, 0:25:55.676 --> 0:25:59.076 look just like her mom. Picture her standing out in 0:25:59.076 --> 0:26:10.236 the yard. And boy did a number on me, despite 0:26:10.636 --> 0:26:12.916 all the dishters. 0:26:16.196 --> 0:26:18.436 He wrote a song about that in twenty minutes. He 0:26:18.556 --> 0:26:20.876 played it for me. Then he played his favorite bit 0:26:20.916 --> 0:26:23.636 of a sad Randy Newman song. He played me a 0:26:23.756 --> 0:26:26.516 heartbreaking song he wrote once after getting up in the 0:26:26.556 --> 0:26:28.996 middle of the night and passing his lover in the hallway, 0:26:29.876 --> 0:26:33.596 and as he played one weeper after another, I realized 0:26:33.756 --> 0:26:37.356 that the thing I'd said about Braddock's tolerance for emotional 0:26:37.476 --> 0:26:41.516 volatility tolerance was the wrong word. That was just me 0:26:41.716 --> 0:26:45.476 projecting my uptight Canadian self on to Braddock. But Braddock 0:26:45.596 --> 0:26:48.276 is from the musical side of the United States, where 0:26:48.316 --> 0:26:51.916 emotion is not something to be endured, it's something to 0:26:51.996 --> 0:26:56.796 be embraced. At one point, when cell phones were still analog, 0:26:57.116 --> 0:26:58.916 you could buy a scanner and listen in to other 0:26:58.916 --> 0:27:03.276 people's conversations, and that's what Braddock does. He can't help himself. 0:27:04.356 --> 0:27:06.996 A woman complains to her husband for an hour about 0:27:06.996 --> 0:27:09.436 his lack of affection from the parking out at the 0:27:09.476 --> 0:27:12.996 grocery store. Then ask him what he wants, and he says, 0:27:13.636 --> 0:27:16.676 maybe Apple Newton's. And then this is my favorite part 0:27:16.916 --> 0:27:20.396 I'm quoting now from Braddock's memoir. The conversation that truly 0:27:20.476 --> 0:27:24.116 touched me was between a man perhaps forty and his mother, 0:27:24.236 --> 0:27:27.196 maybe late sixties, in which the sun opened up about 0:27:27.236 --> 0:27:30.196 sexual problems he was having with his wife. And I 0:27:30.396 --> 0:27:33.836