Adoption—Life as a Country Song

“Few things in life are as difficult as the heartache of being separated from someone you love. Was your home never home to you? Were you ever told, ‘Don’t criticize what you don’t understand?’” Judith Land

“Sad country songs are heartbreaking and often make us cry—my favorites being the ones that provide the type of emotion that gives us encouragement, comfort, consolation and solace.” Judith Land

Country songs tend to fan the emotions of everyday working class Americans by evoking intense feeling of love, being alone, frustration, jealousy, confusion, and all of the things on your mind that are unsettling, especially when there’s nothing in between and you are forced to make a choice.

Is your life sadder than a country song with a hard rain about to fall? Did you ever wake up in the morning and come home at night with nothing to say because there’s too much to think about in your life and too much to figure out?

Are your memories perfectly clear about how things never were? Perhaps, it’s because you have been living in a world described in the country songs that your mother wrote and that’s why the good times keep passing you by.

Nobody knows what triggers those crying spells, when you can’t help falling apart, and you’re dying to find a place to leave your impoverished heart. Your pockets are empty and there’s an empty bottle beside you; your heart is broken and your momma is still the only person on your mind. Life doesn’t get much sadder or lonelier than the words to a country song when the old dog dies and a hard rain is about to fall; when you need a needle and thread to sew up your broken heart; the thunder is about to roll and you’re stuck inside looking through the pane (pain) at nothing but lightning and falling rain.

Country artists come straight from America’s heartland where they sing about drinking beer and chasing women, dogs and pickup trucks, relationships, and bars and honky tonks, but country music themes also often tap into populist family values with a fresh wholesome appeal to patriotic Americans by showing support for Independence Day, red white and blue, and soldiers overseas. Country music takes its roots from folk music and blues, consisting of ballads and dance tunes with simple forms, folk lyric, and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjos, guitars, fiddles and harmonicas. Country music is usually vocalized, generally simple in form and harmony, and typified by romantic and melancholy ballads. The origins are the folk tales of every day working class Americans, who blended popular songs, fiddle tunes, English ballads and cowboy songs integrating rockabilly, bluegrass, country pop, honky tonk, western swing, and dance hall music; a style and genre of largely string-accompanied American popular music having roots in the Southeast and cowboy music of the West.

If you’re an adoptee, hold onto the things that you believe in. Don’t take for granted the love this life gives you. Don’t always expect a free ride. Don’t hold onto a grudge. When you get where you are going, don’t forget to turn back around and help the next child in line because nobody needs another heartache. Don’t sing about dusty trophies on the top shelf and don’t get too overwhelmed by the words of a sad country song. Create a pivotal moment in life by being humble and kind and learning to admire magnolias and horses and corn fields out on the farm. Sing songs about romantic love and commitment, warm friendship, ice cream, puppies and life changing dreams, and when the last line to that emotional country song about a lonely adoptee unfolds, don’t always expect the last line to rhyme…

Judith Land