Chicken Soup for the Soul: Country Music: The Inspirational Stories behind 101 of Your Favorite Country Songs

by Jack Canfield

  If she and I had stayed together, my life probably wouldn’t have taken the path that it took. I probably would have gotten a job as an architect in a suburb of Georgia and just stayed there. I don’t think I would have ended up in the music business, writing songs for Garth Brooks, that’s for sure. And if someone had told me I would end up in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame 30 years later, I couldn’t have even conjured up an image of what that would look like. But I think I discovered that I loved music a lot more than architecture by about my sophomore year. For the next 10 years, I was a troubadour, singing my songs all over the country and even in Europe, and then I finally ended up here in Nashville.

  Around 1988, Garth and his manager, Bob Doyle, had been talking to producers and Allen Reynolds was one of them. I was coming out of an office on Music Row and they were coming out of another. Allen said, “This is Garth Brooks. He’s a pretty good songwriter. You two should try to get together and write sometime.”

  Garth was playing at a small club in the basement of a building on Church Street that night. There were about 30 or 40 people in the club and Garth just knocked their socks off. Afterwards I said to him, “Hey, let’s get together as soon as possible.”

  Allen had a comfortable little office on Music Row with a studio above it called Jack’s Tracks. That’s where he did a lot of his recording. Allen said, “Why don’t you guys go upstairs where they have some windows and try writing.” First we wrote a couple of songs for other people. Then Garth told me about a conversation he had earlier with another writer, Larry Bastian, about those fortuitous circumstances where things don’t work out like you hoped they would, but you’re glad later. So I shared with him my experience with my high school girlfriend, and I think he had had a similar experience with an old flame, too, so we started working on “Unanswered Prayers.”

  Garth didn’t even have a record deal at the time we wrote it. Then he was signed by Capitol Records and they said they were going to put the song on his first album, but didn’t. So I just assumed he wasn’t interested any longer. But Garth always had a plan. Things just don’t happen by chance for him. He and Allen had saved up a lot of really strong songs for Garth’s second album. A lot of artists have a really big first album, but then the second one is usually about half as good. No Fences, his second album, ended up selling a lot more than the first. It had “Friends in Low Places,” and “The Thunder Rolls,” and a bunch of others. And they included “Unanswered Prayers,” too.

  Garth is a great collaborator and really put his stamp on the song. Over the years, “Unanswered Prayers” has been one of his signature songs and very closely identified with him, so it hasn’t been covered by many other artists. I did it myself, but I don’t know of many others.

  I’ve had a lot of people share stories with me over the years who have had similar circumstances where they were hoping for their life to go in one direction and then it goes in another, but it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. And now the song has even inspired a made-for-TV movie. When you play it live and everybody in the room is singing along with the lyric, you realize what an impact it’s had on so many lives.

  Unanswered Prayers

  Just the other night at a hometown football game

  My wife and I ran into my old high school flame

  And as I introduced them the past came back to me

  And I couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be

  She was the one that I’d wanted for all time

  And each night I’d spend prayin’ that God would make her mine

  And if he’d only grant me this wish I wished back then

  I’d never ask for anything again

  CHORUS:

  Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

  Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

  That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

  Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

  She wasn’t quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams

  And I could tell that time had changed me

  In her eyes, too, it seemed

  We tried to talk about the old days

  There wasn’t much we could recall

  I guess the Lord knows what he’s doin’ after all

  BRIDGE:

  And as she walked away, I looked at my wife

  And then and there I thanked the good Lord

  For the gifts in my life

  CHORUS

  Some of God’s greatest gifts are all too often unanswered...

  Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

  Uncle Pen

  Story by James Monroe

  Song written by Bill Monroe

  Recorded by Bill Monroe, Porter Wagoner, Ricky Skaggs and others

  Uncle Pen — Pendleton Vandiver was his name — lived in a little cabin not far from where my dad grew up, in Rosine, Kentucky. He had three or four acres of land. The cabin sat high on a hill above the town, just like the song says. Pen was my dad’s mother’s brother. My father said he had brown eyes like I have. All of the Monroes have blue eyes.

  My dad lost his parents pretty young. His mother died when he was nine, and his daddy died when he was just 16. That’s when he moved in with Uncle Pen. That was the last place my father stayed before he left Kentucky around the age of 18. Pen used to take my dad with him on horseback or muleback and they would play shows in that area. They would play parties and square dances together. Whatever Uncle Pen got paid, he would give my father half.

  My father was known for his mandolin, but he played fiddle, too, and guitar sometimes, and he would play fiddle and guitar with Pen. The music always came from the Vandiver side; it wasn’t on the Monroe side. It was on the Dutch side. Uncle Pen was a self-taught musician. Back in those days, not many people took formal music lessons. My grandfather could dance, too, and my grandmother played a little accordion and fiddle, and could sing, too.

  My father told me Pen was a wonderful man, and a good uncle to my dad. Pen would cook breakfast for my dad in the morning and then cook him dinner, too. Pen was divorced at the time. Uncle Pen had some health problems, so later in life he would get paid to play music and he would also go from town to town trading things. He would trade knives or guns or whatever. He would buy them and then sell them at a profit.

  My dad wrote the song to pay tribute to his uncle. It was really a memorial in the form of a song. It was a big hit for my dad, but a lot of other people recorded it, too. Porter Waggoner had a pretty big hit on it, and Ricky Skaggs had a good hit out of it. It’s had over a million airplays. BMI gave us the million-air award for “Uncle Pen,” and that’s pretty unusual for a bluegrass song.

  I think it’s been so popular because it’s a real story. You can just feel it when you play it. It all fits together perfectly, the story and the music. The song is made for a fiddle. It’s got that shuffle timing and you can’t really even play the song without a fiddle. I’ve tried it, and you can’t do it.

  Uncle Pen

  Oh, the people would come from far away,

  To dance all night ’til the break of day.

  When the caller would holler, “Do-Si-Do”

  They knew Uncle Pen was ready to go.

  CHORUS:

  Late in the evening, about sundown,

  High on the hill, an’ above the town,

  Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it’d ring,

  You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing!

  INSTRUMENTAL BREAK

  Well, he played an old tune they called the “Soldier’s Joy”

  And he played the one they called the “Boston Boy.”

  Greatest of all was the “Jennie Lynn”

  To me, that’s where the fiddlin’ begins.

  CHORUS

  I’ll never forget that mournful day

  When old Uncle Pen was called away,

  He hung up his fiddle and he hung up his bo
w,

  And he knew it was time for him to go.

  CHORUS

  Walk on Faith

  Story by Mike Reid

  Song written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin

  Recorded by Mike Reid

  I never made a decision to pursue a career in music. After I decided to quit playing football when I left the Cincinnati Bengals, I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living. I started playing and singing at clubs in the Cincinnati area and eventually moved to Nashville. The first real hit I wrote was a song called “Inside” for Ronnie Milsap and later I won a Grammy for Ronnie’s recording of “Stranger in My House” in 1983.

  In 1990, I wrote “Walk on Faith” with Allen Shamblin. He brought the idea in one day and we wrote it together. It’s the kind of song that encourages people to hang in there through tough times, whether it’s in a marriage or from a spiritual perspective. There’s no really great story to tell about it, as far as a story behind the song, but this one has a very touching story after the song.

  I ended up recording that song on an album of mine called Turning for Home in 1991. The label put it out as a single and it hit #1 and was there for a couple of weeks. So I went out on the road opening up for K.T. Oslin and Kathy Mattea at the time. We were up in the Northeast somewhere. After the shows, we would line up and sign autographs for people or sign their CDs. And there was a girl — she couldn’t have been more than 20 or 21 — who came through the line that night. When she came through, she was carrying a baby. I asked her name before I signed the CD. I wrote her name and then wrote, “Walk on Faith.”

  After I signed her CD, she thanked me and then she looked at me and said, “I just want you to know that song is the reason I decided to keep this baby.” It was a startling moment for me. There wasn’t much I could say, so I just stood up and gave her a hug.

  I’ve thought about that night a lot since then, because that baby today would be close to 20 years old. I don’t know if songs really make people do things one way or another, but I believe the power of a song lies in its ability to help people identify important things inside them that they have lost touch with.

  I just did a show with Billy Dean and Gary Nicholson out in Napa Valley and there was fellow there who was a hugely successful winemaker. He came up to us afterward and he said, “What you songwriters do is remind us what we feel. For us, our lives are usually about marketing and strategies and that kind of thing,” he said, “and when we sit down on a night like this and listen to songs like these, you help remind us of things we feel, and have felt, but have forgotten.” That’s about the most wonderful thing for someone to say to a songwriter.

  Walk on Faith

  We have come to this place in our love

  Where faith must be stronger than fear

  For if true love is our destination

  Through every storm it must always be clear

  The surest way to get there from here (is to)

  CHORUS:

  Walk on faith

  And trust in love

  Just keep on putting one foot down

  In front of the other

  When the valley’s so wide

  We stumble in stride

  And everything inside wants to give up

  Walk on faith and trust in love

  Farther on beyond the shadows of our doubt

  We will live where true love never dies

  Though the road we must travel is uncertain

  There is a truth in our hearts that never lies

  It is by such grace we are bound to arrive

  CHORUS

  Walking Away a Winner

  Story by Bob DiPiero

  Song written by Bob DiPiero and Tom Shapiro

  Recorded by Kathy Mattea

  When I wrote “Walking Away a Winner” I was either in the middle of, or quickly careening toward, a messy break-up. I was hoping that I was going to take the high road, like the singer in “Walking Away a Winner” did. The line “with my pride intact and my vision back” — who could say that in real life? But I could say it in a song. So I was whistling past the graveyard, so to speak.

  We wrote it in 1992 or 1993, and Kathy Mattea cut it in 1994. It was written quickly because the idea was pretty well fleshed out from the start. I was writing with Tom Shapiro, who is one of the best songwriters of our generation. When you’re writing with someone of his caliber, once you latch onto a really strong idea, the song kind of creates its own kind of internal energy. So then it’s just a matter of riding it and then going back and tweaking the weak parts later.

  “Walking away from a losing game” — some people just can’t do that. To me, it’s a song of empowerment. Even though Kathy sang it, it could be from a guy’s point of view, too. That’s the powerful part of the song — the singer is saying, “I might be losing here, but I didn’t get all my teeth kicked out. I’ve learned from it. I don’t think I’ll go there again.”

  “When love is on the table, the stakes are high,” because you are just laying yourself out there for someone and, of course, this includes the possibility of getting hurt, too. That’s what this person in the song is going through, but they’re taking something positive out of it. That’s where I think the power of that song lies.

  I’ve talked with a lot of people who have said, “That really helped me during a difficult part of my life. I was feeling defeated and broken and that song really helped me get through it.” That’s all you can hope for when you write a song: that it will affect someone’s life personally like that.

  Walking Away a Winner

  Any time love is on the table the stakes are high

  And I thought this was love so I laid it all on the line

  You nearly took everything I had. Never knew I could hurt so bad

  But at least I left with every piece of this heart of mine

  CHORUS:

  I’m walking away a winner

  Walking away from a losing game.

  With my pride intact and my vision back, I can say

  I know where I’m going and I know I’ll be all right.

  I’m walking away a winner, walking back into my life.

  It was a hard way to go when I didn’t know when to leave

  And if you knew all along baby, you weren’t telling me

  Now I know what I can live without.

  I’m heading down the right road now

  Still believing in the way that a real love is meant to be

  CHORUS

  What A Difference You’ve Made In My Life

  Story by Archie Jordan

  Song written by Archie Jordan

  Recorded by Ronnie Milsap

  When I was living in Nashville, I went to a Bible study every week at the home of my friend Alan Moore. We met in his basement, and one week there were about 25 of us, and someone stood up and told this story. He was from a well-to-do family in Nashville. He was doing very well, making lots of money and living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife and daughter and a beautiful home, but he had gotten to drinking and doing drugs. One thing led to another and he lost his job. He went through his savings and then lost his home. Everything went downhill. His wife got disgusted with him and divorced him and left the state with their daughter.

  He was telling us this story and he looked at us and said, “One day, I woke up and realized that I had nothing — no money, no home, and I had nobody. I finally came to the end of my rope, and I turned my life over to God and oh, what a difference He made in my life.”

  Right at that moment, I started writing this song. I started getting music and lyrics in my head while he was still talking. If I ever wrote an inspired song, this was it. I continued writing it on the way home, and played it for my publisher the next morning. He loved it. He said, “Not only is this a great gospel song, but it can be about your wife or your mom or dad, or one of your children.”

  I started to think maybe I should start with a verse like “You do this and you do that
for me, and what a difference you’ve made in my life,” building a laundry list. But when I thought about it, I knew the song should start with the title. And when I got through singing the chorus, I thought, “I think it wants to do the same thing again in the next verse when it says, ‘What a change you have made in my heart,’ and then repeat that at the end for the phrase again.”

  Then I knew I would do a bridge and then go back to that first verse again. It was like an old AABA form, like “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” and it seemed a little redundant, but nothing else really fit.

  I got a chance to write several songs with Hal David, who used to write the lyrics to all those great songs by Burt Bacharach, and he told me one time, “Always go where the song wants to go. Don’t have any preconceived notions about it.” And he was right. He wrote the lyrics to “It Was Almost Like A Song,” which was another big hit for Ronnie Milsap. Hal came to Nashville several times a year and my publisher got me an audition with him, and I put down three of my best melodies on a tape and he liked what he heard, so we ended up collaborating on a few songs.

  I did a simple piano and vocal melody and gave it to Ronnie Milsap. When we cut the demo, we went over to the old RCA Studio B, where Elvis and Roy Orbison and those guys used to record. But when we recorded the master, we did it at Woodland Studios in Nashville. They rented another grand piano and Ronnie played one piano and I played the other. We are both playing on the record.

  B.J. Thomas later recorded “What A Difference You’ve Made In My Life,” and it was a big gospel hit for him. A number of other people recorded it after that. It was nominated for a CMA Award, but didn’t win. That’s okay. I was just glad to get that story out.