Let 'em have that Nashville moon

The Mulligan Brothers, Willie Nelson, Bryan Adams, and Leaving Nashville

So, darling, let the charmers leave the room

Let them have that Nashville moon

I want to know exactly who you are

Then hang me in the Tulsa County stars

Just hang me in the Tulsa County stars

—John Moreland

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There’s something admirable about a songwriter like John Moreland passing on the Nashville scene to write songs where he feels most at home (Tulsa, OK in his case). There are some other great songs about leaving behind the bright lights of Nashville - this week’s Bonus Track has more on that. First things first: Here are the songs we’re digging this week.

The Mulligan Brothers | Oh Susanna (Ben)

Lead singer, Ross Newell, repeats, “You sure do walk away a straight line for all the circles that you do,” through this little ditty - and you’ll be singing with him by the end. It’s got harmonies, pace, strings, and more. The album is going on a decade, but still feels fresh. I predict you will like this song enough to play the next one.

Also available on Apple Music.

Willie Nelson & Emmylou Harris | The Maker (Kody)

After hearing this song performed live by Ruston Kelly on Monday, I’ve been listening to Willie Nelson’s version (with Emmylou’s harmonies) throughout the week (shoutout to my brother-in-law for the recommendation). I love how it references God as “the Maker” and speaks of redemption. May we all know the feeling of the narrator, “I'm not a stranger in the hands of the Maker.”

Also available on Apple Music.

Bryan Adams & Tina Turner | It’s Only Love (Jonathan)

With Tina Turner’s passing this week, I thought this was a fitting pick for your weekend. Bryan Adams at one time said this was his all-time favorite duet.

Also available on Apple Music.

Bonus Track: Leaving Nashville by Travis Montgomery

“I ain’t ever leaving Nashville.” — Donovan Woods

“So long, Nashville, Tennessee.” — Chris Stapleton

As I finished the drive to Music City from the Missouri Ozarks, the lyrics sounding through my Pontiac’s system seemed fitting: “If you give up New York, I’ll give you Tennessee, the only place to be.” It was a mellow but, ultimately, optimistic line from Kings of Leon about settling in the South. But for me, the move to Nashville for college wasn’t about settling; it was about succeeding in music production. As much as I didn’t want to admit it at the time, it was also with the small hope that I might be the one under the lights. The dream was short lived.

I wrestled during that short stint with my calling. Everyone seemed excited for me, but it never felt quite right. Eventually, I decided to transfer to a Bible college back in Missouri where my high school friends were thriving. My fall in Tennessee was one of a lot of songwriting and a lot of angst (glove and hand, really), and it led me to recognize that a vocation is more than how you draw a paycheck. I processed a lot of that hope and grief and sorrow and resolution through songwriting over the next couple of years, including a song about leaving Nashville.

Apparently, I was in good company. Though I vowed to forever loathe country music—very countercultural growing up in rural Missouri—several artists have taken me by surprise since those college days. Two of them are Donovan Woods and Chris Stapleton, alt-country songwriters with ferocious beards, ingenious and haunting lyrics, and phenomenal voices. The brilliance of both Woods and Stapleton is in their ability to stick with genre-standard patterns of songwriting and yet carefully craft each line and lick into a single, satisfying, whole, even at times subverting the expected messaging of a particular song archetype (check out Stapleton’s “Watch You Burn”). It’s sophisticated comfort food, and, as with all comfort food, it feels like home.

Well, to my deep personal sense of vindication, Woods and Stapleton have both written the obligatory tune about the love-hate relationship between a country songwriter and his city, and they’re top of their class. While Woods’s “Leaving Nashville” encapsulates the ups and downs of the songwriting life with no hope (or desire?) for escape, Stapleton’s “Starting Over” (the opener for the eponymous album) expresses the freedom of getting out and the fortitude that meaningful relationships can provide (“Wherever we are is where I want to be,” he sings to his wife). The album’s closer, “Nashville, TN,” serves up that comfort food—the classic break-up song format—as a way to validate the choice for Stapleton to continue and expand his successful career somewhere better for him.

The truth is that without Nashville, Tennessee, we wouldn’t have all these standard forms to fill or most of the greats who’ve filled them so well. What didn’t fit for me does for others who are better suited for it. But I couldn’t help but smile a bit the first time I heard Stapleton sing, “So long Nashville, Tennessee. You can’t have what’s left of me.”

Travis Montgomery lives in Kansas City, Missouri where he serves as a pastor, professor, and higher education administrator. His favorite genre is “electric guitars through tube amps with just enough reverb” and his preferred walk-out song is “Futures,” by Jimmy Eat World.

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

-TheMusicSwap