Best Country Song Ever

I've been a country music fan since the early 1950s when my family turned on the Grand Old Opry every Saturday night on the radio. I remember when I heard Hank Williams had died and I felt that I knew him even though I was only 9 or 10 years old.

The first country song I ever heard on the radio was a Carter Family song and I don't remember which one it was, but I'm thinking Wildwood Flower. The simplicity and hill country twang captured my imagination of how music and words teamed to make us feel a certain way. For me, that was less lonely. Living on a variety of farms, being lonely was the order of the day. Country music on the radio took me down those country roads, away from the loneliness, even if only in my mind.

Through the years, country music morphed into country western and then into country rock and now there can't be a term for what's being played out of Nashville. One thing for sure, it's not my kind of country. So many of the singers seem to enjoy looking and sounding like rednecks, and I just don't care for it. They can do as they like. It's just that I don't have to listen to them and I don't.

Last week, the singer of my favorite country song died. Like so many others, He Stopped Loving Her Today was my favorite country song and George Jones sang it as only he could. I first liked the song when my grandfather passed away and I knew then that he had only that day stopped loving my grandmother. Twenty-five years later, I can't hear that song or even hear about it, without tears coming to my eyes. It's a great song. And if you haven't heard it, check it out on YouTube.

Thanks to George Jones for all the years of good, old fashioned country music, and for the song that always touches my heart when I hear it.