Chorus
That morning of Thursday, June 10, 2010, the first day of the festival, was hot and humid. The Judds were giving the kick-off performance at Riverfront Park and I didn’t have to be up on the stage until two p.m., so I decided to walk around downtown awhile, trying to look like a regular person until my noon appointment with Tonilynn in the Hair Chair at Flint Recording. I figured I was pretty safe from getting mobbed since I had on my ball cap pulled low and my bag-lady clothes. I felt sweat beads trickling down my spine as I walked along Commerce Street past the Chamber of Commerce then the huge exhibit hall of the Nashville Convention Center.
I turned and walked down Fifth Avenue South toward the Country Music Hall of Fame, thinking of greats like Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline, how much I used to dream of my portrait hanging with theirs. I recalled how desperate I was for that particular stamp of approval as I stopped and stood in that sweltering sun, looking at the quote from Conway Twitty etched into a foundation stone: “A good country song takes a page out of somebody’s life and puts it to music.” I thought of all the pages of my past that had sculpted me, and I knew those were gifts bestowed on me right along with my voice and my songwriting ability.
I walked on in the gathering heat of that June day, marveling at the resilient spirit of club owners, shopkeepers, and restaurateurs, businesspeople who despite the losses and the traumas from the recent devastation—though there was still a great amount of work to be done, some recovery yet to happen—were filled with graciousness and expectation. The great American city of Nashville was indeed rising again, and no matter how much she’d been damaged, she would unquestioningly offer her song of survival.
I felt a little nervous about singing my new song in public for the first time, so I whispered a prayer of thanks that I’d survived, too, that I didn’t have to live like I was just plopped down onto some crummy path I had to walk the rest of my life. Maybe I couldn’t predict what life would hand me, but now I knew how to respond, and I was free to dance!
That’s what was circling in my brain as I climbed up on the Riverfront Park stage after Neal McCoy’s show. I began my performance with a calm and happy spirit, strumming my Washburn, singing and occasionally strutting across the stage. Tonilynn had made me beautiful and put-together on the outside, and I was feeling beautiful inside, tossing my hair, enjoying the applause of my fans. The spirit of survival and freedom hit me even stronger as I began my encore song. From the minute I strummed the first chord, belted out the first verse of “When the Music Calls Me Home,” I could see the crowd connecting.
I went down to the waterside,
climbed into my little boat of memories.
The music called me home,
And I was rowing happily.
But then the storms began,
the water surged up high,
The skies above turned gray,
and I lay down to cry.
That’s when I faced the music,
of my innocence torn away.
Fifteen, not yet a woman,
Bad memories made big waves.
Dirty words that tore my heart.
Teardrops fell like rain,
All alone in the eye of the storm,
Bad memories made big waves.
I rowed my little boat through the dark,
Saying, “I want some sunny days.”
Nobody seemed to hear me,
Bad memories made big waves.
Then I saw Jesus, walking on the water.
I saw Jesus and I rowed harder.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, stepping into my boat.
“There’s a rainbow up ahead, and you’re not alone.
You got the three men you will need the most.”
CHORUS
There may be thunderclouds above me,
I may be drifting in the pouring rain,
But there’s a rainbow up ahead,
And my Father holds my hand.
My guitar pick was firm in my fingers as I twanged away, pouring my heart right up and out of my open throat, watching people’s eyes well with tears, many in the audience pulling tissues from pockets and purses, me so gripped by the intensity of my own story that as I finished I flung the microphone stand down to the stage and yelled, “Yeah! My Father holds my hand!” Whistles and whoops erupted, and I stood there bathed in a long, loud ovation.
Beyond the crowd I could see the sun streaming down through clouds like cotton stretched thin, and below those, I knew sunlight shimmered on the surface of the Cumberland as it wound serenely alongside downtown. Picking up the microphone, waiting until the applause at last died, I said, “Thank you very much. I’ve been blessed with a career I adore, and over my years in Nashville, I’ve found country music fans to be some of the most generous and caring folks on this planet. That said, I’m not surprised to see the CMA joining the efforts to help Music City rebuild after the flood.
“I was walking around our city this morning, and I saw proof that Nashville is rising again, and I believe we’ll fully recover from this disaster. In fact, I believe we’ll emerge even stronger! Tennessee is the Volunteer state, and if there’s ever a time you could see people actually living out that name, it’s now, in the aftermath of the flood! I’ve heard tons of stories of people caring for each other during the flood, about the compassion of our great city and how we came together as a community.
“This afternoon, my dream is to spread the word about ongoing relief efforts. There are still people who need our support, and we can all help by making a donation to flood relief. Personally, I’ve decided that every single cent of profit from ‘When the Music Calls Me Home’ will go to flood relief efforts.”
A few days later, Mike told me someone in the audience caught “When the Music Calls Me Home” on video, and it did one of those Internet phenomenons they call “going viral.” Mike said it had spread worldwide to more than a hundred million people. “It’ll go platinum,” he said, “believe you me.”
He was right, and I’m proud of the proceeds that have gone to flood relief. It’s two years later and my career keeps me so busy I hardly have time to think about the fact that induction into the Hall of Fame hasn’t happened yet. I’m in no rush, because I know being invited into the Hall of Fame is usually what you call ‘a lifetime achievement acknowledgment,’ and most inductees are past their performing years, or the main part of them anyway. They didn’t even induct Elvis until 1998!
However, I was added to the Walk of Fame. When I think back to that day I walked along Music Row, knocking on doors with my demos, I never could’ve imagined standing on the sidewalk in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame while Mayor Karl Dean kicked off a ceremony where I got my name in a big red star on the concrete.
This year I’ve got forty shows on my touring calendar, traveling with an entourage that includes my beautician and mother-in-law, Tonilynn Pardue, and a really sexy driver for the Eagle who goes by B. L., which is short for Bobby Lee. B. L. also runs my merchandising operation, and we’re the proud parents of Erastus, a dog who travels with us and has his very own Murphy bed on the bus, but prefers to crawl into bed with his people.
In the linen closet on board the Eagle is a stack of patchwork quilts from the hand of Aunt Gomer, a woman who seemed to have saved every scrap of clothing she ever owned, and who cut them up over the years to sew together into wacky patterns, revealing this sort of practical and organic beauty in each interlocking piece of fabric, leaving in them a part of herself for us.
The night Bobby Lee worked up the nerve to ask me to marry him, he said, “More than anything, I want to spend my life with you, Jennifer. But sometimes I feel like I ought not ask you, because what if you say yes but later wish you’d married an able-bodied man? What if you get sad, thinking you’ve gone and squandered all your youth on somebody like me?”
I didn’t have to think a second. I said, “Bobby Lee, in my opinion, no other man on this earth is half the man you are! And anyway, it’s too late now to think about all that because I already love you.” I honestly didn’t see his disability and hoped he would not see my disabilities and love me less for them.
Neither one of us saw the point in a long engagement and we decided to get married that very next day. Bobby Lee thought we ought to aim for something a little more special than going to the courthouse. I told him, “Hey, I know just the place! It’s on Music Row, near Bobby’s Idle Hour Tavern.” And so we went to the Vegas-style Rhinestone Wedding Chapel on Sixteenth Avenue. Tonilynn did my hair and makeup and dressed me in a pretty white tea-length gown. Bobby Lee looked gorgeous in a gray tux. You could choose to have your ceremony done by the house wedding official or, for no extra charge, an Elvis impersonator. “Elvis,” Bobby Lee insisted with one of his smiles I simply cannot resist, and I figured we’d be just as married, so I said okay.
After we said our vows, we toasted with the sparkling nonalcoholic bubbly that the Rhinestone Wedding Chapel provided. There was also a four-layer wedding cake, and a marriage certificate created by the famous Hatch Show Prints. The staff rang bells and tossed birdseed as Bobby Lee and I left hand-in-hand, and I heard Tonilynn’s voice crack as she hollered, “Congratulations!” and “I sure wish Aunt Gomer was here to see y’all.”
Although you choose the person you marry, you don’t choose your parents, and I remain cautious when it comes to interacting with mine. My mother is still with my father. We talk occasionally on the telephone, and it sounds as if she still carries the torch for him, hanging on to the faith that he’ll change. And though I have forgiven my father, I don’t seek a close relationship with him nor visit the old homestead.
It’s said that music is the only true barometer of a person’s soul, and I know my decision to forgive my father has changed me to my very core. Being in a happier place has certainly changed my artistic direction. The heart I bared in those earliest songs bears little resemblance to the one that has been pouring stuff out of my throat lately. There’s one place I can witness that clearly. My most recent album, Beautiful Journey, is proof of a significant turning point for this woman who built her career on the fallout from childhood ghosts.
I used my pain over Mr. Anglin’s passing to write a song called “Watching Me Down Here,” and whenever I sing it, I feel him smiling on me. I know faith’s the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, but I have to say there are these little random moments—holding Bobby Lee’s hand as we stroll around the grounds of Harmony Hill, driving up to Cagle Mountain and seeing Erastus dart off through the kudzu after something, composing a new melody in my head while sitting in the Brentwood Panera, hearing Tonilynn yelling at the devil—when I feel a distinct presence, a crescendo of almost painful happiness, this glimpse into the eternal.
Think of the way a song sometimes lifts you up to a better place mentally, or illuminates your heart and mind about a certain person or emotion. It’s like that, the movie soundtrack for my life, playing along beneath the ordinary and extraordinary moments, sometimes apparent, sometimes not, but always what holds everything together in perfect harmony.
Dear Reader:
I love country music, and I read a comment from Merle Haggard about his music that struck me as exactly how I feel about my writing. Merle said, “Music is a positive vibration that we all need. It comes through me, and I believe it comes from God. The Lord is just using me as an instrument, and I’m just doing the best I can to respond to what He wants.”
I know certain songs have pulled me up out of many a dark hole, and I believe people’s stories are positive vibrations we need as well, for escape, entertainment, and enlightenment. Sometimes when I’m in the midst of my own story, however, I don’t see a speck of redeeming beauty in it. It’s not until later that I can look back and see how an experience, an event, or an encounter with a certain person affected me. Sometimes I realize it gave me deeper insight, polished my rough edge, or birthed a certain compassion. As the Apostle Paul said, “Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known” (1 Corinthians 13:12 CEB).
Every single one of us has something we struggle with, hard moments, dark valleys, or challenging relationships. We may think, How could that possibily be good? Like Paul said, our vision here on earth is dim. The stories of our lives are like songs. When we turn them over to the great Composer, He can make something beautiful and good from our hurts and mistakes. They can become beautiful melodies that lift others up.
It’s my heartfelt hope and prayer that Twang will be a source of entertainment, illumination, and encouragement for folks on this terrestrial ball.
Truly,
Julie
Discussion Questions
1. Jennifer believes it’s her destiny to be a country music diva. How much of a person’s life is determined either by their individual talents/gifts or by their belief about what they’re “meant to do”?
2. Though Jennifer gets that thing she wants so badly—fame as a country music superstar—the consequences of this create yet another problem. Has there ever been anything you wanted very much but that turned out to have a hard side?
3. Jennifer believes she can repress her troubled past and it won’t affect her. Do you think people can bury their pasts with no repercussions? Why or why not?
4. Tonilynn assures Jennifer that instead of emotionally crippling her, she can pour her painful memories into art. Do you believe that expressing feelings through art can promote healing? How?
5. Tonilynn has strong spiritual beliefs and is very vocal about them. Do you believe people have supernatural “gifts of the spirit” such as the word of knowledge Tonilynn claims to have? What do you think about how Tonilynn talks back to the devil?
6. Roy Durden says some people use religion as a crutch. Do you think people use religion in harmful ways?
7. Do you think people have to come to their own decision, in their own time, when it comes to faith in God? Can faith in God be forced? Explain.
8. Does having an earthly father like Jennifer’s make it harder to relate to a loving heavenly Father? How?
9. When does Jennifer’s faith in the Cumberland River evaporate? Do you believe that natural disasters/acts of God force people to realize that they don’t control life?
10. Aunt Gomer’s two biggest fears are Satan and going into a nursing home. What are your greatest fears?
11. Jennifer feels the young girls inside Déjà Vu are victims as she was. She believes men are using them and that real gentlemen don’t visit these “gentlemen’s clubs.” How do you feel about the so-called gentlemen’s clubs and the girls who work there?
12. Jennifer blames her father for her screwed-up life. She doesn’t want to offer him forgiveness because she feels that would be like saying what he did to her didn’t matter. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
13. If a person doesn’t get rid of hate and bitterness, can it destroy them? Do you agree with the statement: “Forgiveness is such a powerful weapon for any survivor or victim of crime?” Why?
14. Forgiveness is a choice that can be very difficult. When you forgive people, you don’t get an instant case of amnesia. Jennifer says she has decided to forgive her father, but then states in the epilogue that she does not have a close relationship with him. Do you think she’ll ever be able to have a good relationship with her earthly father? Why or why not?
15. For lots of girls/women, even if their relationship with their father was a flawed one, they’re drawn to men who remind them of him. Do you think this might be why Jennifer fell for Holt Cantrell? Why did it take her so long to lose her feelings for him?
16. Jennifer despises her mother’s weakness in denying her father’s drinking problem and for turning a blind eye to the way he treats women. How does Jennifer display this contempt toward her mother?
17. Were you surprised toward the end of the book when Jennifer feels some empathy for her mother? Why do you think Jennifer changed?
18. Do you think God cares about every detail of your life? Why?
19. Can God redeem a person’s past and use the bad stuff for the glory of His kingdom? How?
20. We’re told that in Heaven we’ll understand everything clearly, that God will take his children by the hand and show them how all their heartaches and losses down here on earth were of value, that beautiful and good things came of the most difficult circumstances. Do you think this hope is enough to help you make it through the dark valleys? Why?
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