Country Music

It's a true story. It was about a G.I. that I knew and he's from Pahokee, Florida. And he married a girl from England. He's wounded over there, and he's in the hospital in England and he married a nurse and he brought her to Pahokee. And they lived behind us. I used to hear them over there arguing, you know. My mom would be out in the back with her washing machine, you know, washing the clothes. And you could hear them just a fussing about. I'd say, "Momma, how come they fussin' all the time?" Oh, I don't know son. But I tell you what, that Ruby's a good girl. He just accuses her of everything. All that went in and it didn't come out until I was heading home from the office to Donaldson, and I wrote that song. I left Cedarwood one day, driving home. I lived in Donaldson, Tennessee. I had the radio on, I got in a jam, a traffic jam and we were just set there and set there. I turned on the radio and Johnny Cash was singing, "Don't take your guns to town son, leave your guns at home, no don't take your guns to town." I said, "Ruby, don't take your love to town." And by the time I got home, I had that song finished. I sat down on the couch, I took my guitar, I said, "Come here Doris, I want you to hear something." She said, that's the worst song you've ever... That's the most morbid song I've ever heard. Anyway, she didn't like the song. To me, Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town was one of those stories that really touched your soul. I mean, you can just feel the pain from this guy coming. After he's done everything that he can do for his country and come back the way he is. And then to deal with that. A few years after that, I don't know, two or three years the Kent State thing happened, you know, up there. Kenny had cut this album, he was part of the first editions at that time. And he cut this album. I think it was called Something Burning. And Ruby was in that album. A disc jockey up in Ohio heard it and started playing it. Then boom, it just went crazy. Those songs have been cut over and over and over and over. Ruby, it's been... it was recorded in Ireland. It wasn't me who started that crazy old Irish war. It's been recorded in Russia (sings in a foreign language) You just don't know you know, all that's happening until you get your check. Country music is known for patriotic songs. And sometimes belligerently patriotic songs. But what I think is far more significant is some of the greatest anti-war songs ever are country music songs. Such as Galveston. "In the middle of the Vietnam war, I clean my gun and dream of Galveston. I am so afraid of dying as I watch the seabirds flying." "Ruby, don't take your love to town the wants and the needs of a woman your age surely I recognize." These are two songs appearing in the Vietnam era, one of the talking about a man in a wheelchair and impotent. The other talking about a young man separated from his lover and he is so afraid of dying, "I clean my gun and dream of Galveston." These are anti-war songs, but they are pro-American songs. Country has always been willing to tell the truth about the war. Because American underclass people, black and white have always disproportionately gone to war. There are some great country songs about the willingness of a soldier to get up and do what needs to be done to protect us all.