My Life Through Song

"Put me in coach" Those words shaped my childhood. My friends and I would go down to "the lot" every day durring the summer and play ball, I guess you could compair my friends and I to the gang in the movie "The Sandlot" Mixing and matching teams, using tires or whatever we could find as bases and then running when someone broke a window or hit a ball against the house across the street. Yes we all wanted "our moment in the sun" as the song says. I grew up around the game, it's like oxygen to me, I need to to live. My buddies and me would spend every day in that old vacent lot that lied between two houses, when i drive by it today it doesn't see very big, maybe 40 by 50 yards. We would sneak tires out of a shed thats behind the lot and use them for bases. Sometimes we would use old ball gloves when the peope were home who owned the shed.





I love this song, rather than a wal-mart parking lot, this song reminds me of the baseball field parking lot in my tiny town of McCool Junction. Chris Cagle puts in to words what that gravel filled oasis means to me. That to is the place where I thought I was hot stuff because I was able to drive that old jlopie my dad gave to me, the same place where every weekend night every one would scrable to hide their beer when old barny 5 rolled through. Ya thats even like the song goes "Had my first kiss". Ya there isn't much to do in my home town so we had to create different ways to have fun, I have some of my favorite memories in that place. we'd stay out till 2am driving golf carts around the baseball field, blowing up fire crackers or go parking with our girls. Ya that old place means a lot to me, it's defantly a place where "We did a lot of livin, it was small-town teenage heaven".


Kenny Chesney - No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems


"No shirt, no shoes, no problems" Is the way I like to live my life. This song always makes me think of the days me and my buddy alex skipped school and wend down by the river where there was a beach and just sat back and enjoyed life while all our counter parts were in the middle of english. All we needed was a cooler, a boombox, some lawn chairs and some fishin poles and we were in heaven. This song brings out the carefree side of myself, and be a bartender somwhere in the virgin islands. My bud alex and I would sit on that sand bar that lies past the tree line. It was our own oasis where we didn't have a care in the world, we named it kokomo, you know get their fast then take it slow. I remember tellin mom bye before school then meeting Alex in the baseball field parkin lot and hoppin in the truck where we would drive down the gravel road driving through the cornfield parkin the truck in the shade. It was the perfect spot no even the farmer whos land it was could find us. the riverside was nesseled behind the rarely used gravel road that's home to an old rusty bridge where my senior call took our group picture.



Small Town


I was born in a small town! This song and video really hit home to me. The song I think speaks for its slef when you hear the words. When you watch this video you see kids playing baseball which is big in my book, there is also a picture of a kid maybe 4yrs old in a ball uniform holding a bat and this is exactly what my baby pictures look like bat in one hand ball in the other. You also see people running track and pole vaulting and in my tiny little piece of americana I call McCool Jucntion, track and field is a following, we currently have won our conference in track for 6 straight years so everybody in the town is big on the sport. There is this seen in the vido where there's a homeade vido clip of kids roller skating, and this really takes me back to when I was growing up goin to friends birthday parties at the roller ring, tryin to impress the girls with our moves when half the time we'd end up on our butts embarrased, but hey can't blame a kid for tryin right?

We Rode In Trucks


To me when you live in a small rural town riding in trucks is a way of life and when I first heard this song it just made me smile cause it perfectly describes my friends and I, for instance "That's us hallin hay in the field with the radio on. That's us headin straight into town when the work is done" perfectly states what every day is like where I'm from cause heck everybody has hauled hay a time or two, and for the most part all of us work for farmers or what have you and on friday afternoon when the works done, were head into town to pick up some ladies, lay a little rubber and raise some hell. Theres a place in the video where it shows two buddies spining cookies in a field with the doors off of the pickup and that is what me and my friend used to do when we hand nothin better to do, it really reminds me alot my me and him gettin stuck countless times in his old chevy.


Craig Morgan - Redneck Yacht Club


Yea it's probably funny to most but this is what summer on the lake outside of my town is like on the weekends. The little lake thats spose to be "private" hasn't closed the gate in the last 10 years. Everyone has a few friends that live out there or atleast have a cabin. This tiny litte man made lake that's the shape of a horseshoe has about 25 or so houses around it. My friends their family all spend at least a couple of weekends out on that lake, if they dont get on the lake it's a good bet they spend a few days on a picknick table drinkin some brewskies watchin all the kids make fools out of themselves knockin eachother off the tubes and water ski's or what have you. The last place you'd expect to find a like is where this one lies, out off some gravel road outside of town, turn down the drive past the unshut and never locked gate down the road where you see 6 or 7 year olds drivin 4 wheelers shootin bb guns at squrrels. Ya it's a place where "basstrackers, bayliners and a party barge, are strung together like a floating trailer park anchored out and gettin loud all summer long side by side there's five houseboat front porches astroturf, lawn chairs and tiki torches regular joes rocking the boat that's us the redneck yacht club"




I swear this song was made about my hometown, every lyric rings true even the pale blue water tower is true. This song makes me proud whenever I hear it, it always puts a big smile on my face. The video starts by rollin through town showin a pale blue water tower just like the one that sits up the road from my house. I espically love the part where it showes the old men talking over coffee in my town this place is whats called the C.A.V.E. or better know as Citizens Against Virtually Everything this is where all the old farmers go in the middle of the day to crab and bullshit about everything from whos gettin married to who's the starting quarterback this year. The last thing in the video that paints a spittin image of my town is when the song "goes we're off to Sunday service at the Church of Christ, and if we want a seat, we better leave right now" because every sunday the curch is just packed even though we have 3 in our tiny town, you better leave earily for church unless you want to get a good seat.

I Go Back


This song defantly takes me back. The video brings back so many memories of me growing up. Right from the get go you see Kenny walkin and flashes of different memories that takes me back and one of those is a quick glance of placks on the wall that reminds me of my high school lobby with a bunch of distirct title placks and what not covering the walls. And then it shows Kenny standing against lockers and it reminds me off all those times we'd skip class and hangout in the locker area or my gym locker that I hold very sacred in my heart because growing up a guy has a few things that are a part of him and that was certanly one of mine. Next is when you hear whats probably a coach saying those infamous words everyone hears growing up "You don't realize it right now but in 15, 20 years from now your gonna say man those were the greatest times of my life" And now being a full year removed from high school I realize that I'm probably going to be sayin that in 15 years. Then the music kicks in with him standing on the middle of that "old gym floor" goin "Jack and Diane painted a picture of a life in my dreams, and suddenly the crazy world made more sense to me" I cant put into words the feeling that goes through my body when I listen to this song, its like a timepiece just plays over and over in my mind those good times I've had and will never forget.