Clair McFarland: My Life In One Country Song

You can’t boil your whole life down into a country song, but you can come close.

I always took refuge in music, whether it was the Hootie and the Blowfish CD my dad played on repeat the entire summer of 1995 while he rebuilt some forgotten hot rod, or the Merle Haggard records he pulled out of storage in 2002. 

Life is messy, but good music is not. There’s something clean about knowing that some guy sang his soul into a can, had it transcribed and reproduced, and sent it into the wide world so that ordinary, angsty people like me could rattle the air of our homes with that guy’s soul.  

I mean, it’s sort of presumptuous for anyone to assume I want his rawest emotions crackling my speakers. But that very foolish, very human presumption is what makes the act of sharing a song so endearing.

The songwriter dares to be a sappy idiot. That takes courage.

George Strait coddled me through my first breakup. The Goo Goo Dolls got me through high school.

I’m not too proud to admit I had a Nirvana phase.

I figured if I could find the right song, I could weather anything.

But I always, always circle back to country music. Not the crappy, fake-accent, get-up-on-my-tailgate-in-them-Daisy-Dukes pop that some of y’all call country music. That’s actually the soundtrack to Satan’s girlfriend’s favorite soap opera.

No: Real country music teems with corny puns, but it’s anguished, joyful, intense and sincere.

It calls me. Just like these boundless Wyoming hills call me home from vacation. My dad’s frown calls me back from an acerbic joke. Spring winds call me out of myself.

One windy night, the little, feisty twin picked up The Husband’s guitar.

I glanced at The Husband (a country hymn-writer) to see if this was OK with him.

He smiled and sat down next to Little-Feisty. Then he, um, wrenched the little fella’s fingers into a spider grip on the sharp strings.

“That’s G,” he said.

Little-Feisty nodded.

The Husband rearranged those sun-toasted fingers again. “And that’s D,” he said.

Little-Feisty strummed. The guitar whined.  

“And this,” said The Husband, stretching Little-Feisty’s ring finger, “is C.”

The boy strummed; the guitar cooed with relief.  

“And if you can memorize those and practice them, you can play, like, a thousand songs,” The Husband added.

Dimples punctuated Little-Feisty’s grin. He kept strumming.

I walked away so I could wash a mountain of dishes, but the three chords followed me.

Eventually, all four boys brushed their teeth and got into bed.

Little-Feisty brought the guitar.

I walked into the twins’ room to find the big, sweet twin lying belly-down on the carpet and looking up at Little-Feisty, who sat on the edge of his bed cradling the guitar on his lap. His faded-denim knees angled outward; one bare, curled foot squished down on its upside-down mate on the floor.

I couldn’t see his turquoise eyes because he wore his Wyoming Cowboys hat low on his forehead, he looked down at his fingertips as he ground them, mercilessly, into the strings. Shadows pooled in that one rogue dimple on the right side of his chin.

And he played.

“Mom!” shouted Middleborn, who stomped in to see what the ruckus was, “What’s wrong with your face?”

Big-Sweet glanced over at my face.

“Oh it’s nothing, he just made her cry with his guitar playing,” said Big-Sweet.

“Mom cries when she’s happy. It’s backwards,” said Firstborn, who stomped into the room in search of the free weights.

I was crying. I saw in Little-Feisty the courage to bare one’s thoughts, and to trust the wonders of song and sound to carry them. He looked to me like a young George Strait crooning of all he’s loved, and all he lost for Amarillo, without one shred of regret.

“Hey Mom, you OK?” asked Little-Feisty.

I nodded.

If we could boil down my entire life and put it into just one country song, that was it.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.