Life without Lyrics

Life without Lyrics



All I needed were the lyrics to go with the title of my country music song.

I am not a country music song writer; I have no illusions of being one; and I definitely have no musical talent. Although I’ve never been a fan of the music itself, for years I’ve been intrigued with the titles and lyrics of country music songs: “All My Exes Live in Texas,” “Holding Her, Loving You,” “If it Weren’t for Bad Luck , I’d Have no Luck at all,” just to mention a few, and for me, most memorably, the song that helped me make it through my senior year of high school football (1974), “If We Make it Through December.” Life events must surely evoke those titles in somebody’s hurtin’, achin’, breakin’, heart. Okay, not all the songs are the result of emotional trauma, job loss, or a broken heart: “Get your biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed,” is a case in point.

But these titles and lyrics reveal something real about life. For those millions who have been jilted, or the millions more who know first- hand what it is to have lost and even feel like losers, and for the rest who have slid down the slippery slope of concealing sin and covering shame, there is a country music song that soothes the pain with words and melody.

So here’s mine: it came to me as I was sharing with my daughter, in a by-the way moment, that I had discovered the reason for the ache in my hip: it’s called “degenerative disk disease.” (The problem was not in my hip but in my lower back.) Her response: “I think my hip hurts just like you describe.” And now the comment that gave me my country music song title: “Everything I don’t want, I got from you” That’s it! I could almost hear the voices crooning in the shadows of a smoky bar. She went on, bless her compassionate heart, to explain herself, “You’re short, so am I; you are not good in math, neither am I; you can’t sleep much, neither can I; and now this degenerative disc disease thing. I’m sure I will inherit that from you too.”

She had given me my title; now all I needed were the lyrics.

No lyrics would come. Maybe it’s because I haven’t retained enough misery to substantiate the words in my title. Life can change, no doubt, in an instant. And life goes on with or without us. And yet something is given that enables some to keep stepping, swinging, and seeking--- despite their stumbling blocks, strike outs, and setbacks—something that keeps them inhaling the breath of life even as they gasp for one more opportunity, cry for one more chance, and hope for a little more time to cross the finish line with chest stretched out and head held high, something that is received only by those who recognize they don’t have it: grace.

I have more life to live with other lyrics, but not the ones that would fit my title.

But should the circumstances of life change---should my four children become rotters, should my wife run away with, well, should my wife run away, should my work become boringly repetitive and the people I work with cutthroats, exploitive to the last person, should the climate I live in become unbearable, should my dreams of a better place evaporate in the heat of the desert sun, and as a result of it all, should I become a broken down drunken sot, floating aimlessly through life like a released helium balloon, bouncing from bar to bar, hoping finally to land, perhaps in Luckenback, Texas, with the hurt, with the alone, with Willie, Wayland, and the boys---then I, filled with powerless resentment that my ship left without me, my wife jilted me, my children forgot me, my job disappointed me, then I might find some true grit to accompany my country music title. I would announce my song and bellow the lyrics, addressing us all, all of us who are different but the same: the details of our disappointments differ; the site of our defeats change; the complexity of our weaponry intensifies. But the pattern remains the same: we trust; we hurt; we retreat--- to the bar, to the closet, to anonymity.

Until then, I’ll enjoy my life without the lyrics…and hope they never come.


Life Matters, by David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is published weekly. You can visit David at his website www.davidbwhitlock.com or email him at doctordavid@windstream.net.