Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

Those who write songs are my favorite storytellers.

In roughly three minutes, they can wrap your heart up and tie it in a pretty bow. Or, they can write of a baby that was born, then carry you down through his long life until his pinewood box is lowered six feet into the ground. In three minutes.

I applaud writers of Sinatra songs, Cole Porter, Broadway lyricists, Mellencamp, or the great hymn writer, Albert E. Brumley. I know the words to many Irving Berlin songs.

But my favorites will always be country music songwriters. Bob McDill? Merle Haggard? They are poets for the common man. They use words I know. They write about the life that I live and my kinfolk. They coax back sweet memories of swimming holes and Friday night football games and pay tribute to the simple life that, first, I was born into and now freely choose.

From the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s rise up those I admire most. Hank Williams. Johnny Cash. Hank Cochran. Curly Putnam. And, of course, Harlan Howard, whose philosophy is immortalized across the entrance of the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville: “Country music is three chords and the truth.”

Tink and I crossed paths briefly, once, with Hall of Fame songwriter Allen Shamblin, who won every award possible with a smash for Miranda Lambert called “The House That Built Me.”

It’s a stellar, heart-tugging song of a young woman who returns to her childhood home. A beautiful line is, “I bet you don’t know that under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.”

Whew. I’ve lived that. For a few minutes, he and I talked about how his Texas raising and my deep South upbringing inform our writing. Then, when we mentioned our small home churches, we began to quote lyrics from old timey hymns, as though we were reciting Shakespearean sonnets.

Life’s experiences and observations root country music. A few years before Dale Earnhardt died during a Daytona 500 accident, I was visiting the number 3 truck at Talladega. As I started off the truck, a man was standing by the steps, holding a large frame.

“Is Dale back there?” he asked. When I replied that he was, he said, “Would you mind asking him to come out here? I want to give him this.”

He turned the frame around and showed me the lyrics to a recent number one song by the mega group, Alabama, called “I’m In A Hurry (And I Don’t Know Why).”

“You wrote this?” I asked. Nodding, he said, “I was watchin’ him race one Sunday and this came to me.”

“Wait here,” I replied. Dale was not one to be bothered with frivolous things, but he loved country music and I knew he’d love this.

Earnhardt was leaned against the cabinet, talking to a crew member. I took his arm and tugged him toward the door. “You need to come out here and see this.”

He loved it. Now, every time I hear the song, every word speaks of Earnhardt — especially the haunting lines, “All I really gotta do is live and die/I’m in a hurry and I don’t know why.”

Country music songwriters are like my people who used to pick cotton by hand. The cotton was white and pretty, but sometimes tinged with blood from their pricked hands. Songwriters can pull pretty stories from bloody experiences.

Once, I dated a songwriter. He has authored several number one records and lots of album cuts. After Tink and I married, he emailed to offer his best wishes.

“You’re the inspiration behind some of the best songs I’ve ever written. I owe you for bringing out such good music from me.”

A storyteller knows that this is a wonderful, warm compliment from another storyteller.

My reply email was genuine. “You couldn’t have said anything nicer. Glad I could help.”

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of the forthcoming novel “ST. SIMONS ISLAND: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.”