Tag: country music

The Courage to Embrace Those Far Away Places

On By Sherrie CroninIn courage8 Comments

After writing a book that takes place in India, and making online friends there, I follow the news from this amazing South Asian country. Much of it is positive and even uplifting.

Countless stories of personal courage and altruism fill the Times of India section called Good News Stories, and everyday headlines tell tales like how the tech savvy country was barely affected by the ‘WannaCry’ ransomware that froze computers in over 100 countries worldwide.

And yet, India has once again made the headlines in the United States with a horrific rape. This time, a jilted lover and his friends abducted and ultimately murdered a young woman on May 9. The details are horrible.

Along with the many tragic aspects of this incident is the side effect of how it serves to further separate the people of this world. No society exists on this planet that does not have its crimes; larger countries have more. Crowding, poverty, stresses from modernization and the integration of different cultures adds to volatility everywhere. But when the awful event occurs in the back yard of somebody else who lives far away from you, it is easy to think  “Oh, that’s the way they are.”

That is unfortunate at any time, but especially now. Thanks to recent events, my own country is seeing a surge of hate crimes with intolerance on the rise. Our world is facing a growing epidemic of nationalism, the frequent outgrowth of which is more hostility, a lack of international cooperation and even wars. Right now, we need all the cross-cultural empathy that we can get.

It’s a delicate matter to feel a sense of commonness when learning of a bad situation that we don’t think would occur in our own culture. (Of course, we could be wrong about that.) But surely it is no stretch to identify with the anger and loss of the victim’s family, with the sense of fear and outrage in the community, and with the confusion and shame of the perpetrator’s family. These all extend well beyond the specifics of the crime, and are woven into the stories of mayhem and destruction of any sort, in any place.

Far away places. They can be scary. They can be easy to demonize and hard to identify with. That is, until we look at the deeper emotions behind the events and see the common threads. Then we can weep for others and wish healing for them, because in our hearts we, too, know what it is like to face sorrow and find the strength to move on.

Enjoy this relaxing duet of two icons of Americana, Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow, as they sing about “Far Away Places.”

(For more thoughts on Far Away Places see Leaving a Light Footprint in a Far Away Place, As Far Away Places Edge Closer, Caring About Far Away Places and Those Far Away Places Could Be Next Door.)

Backing Down, Making Nice, and Saying Goodbye

On By Sherrie CroninIn courage, women1 Comment

I’ve been in something of a daze since November 9, the morning after the election. Words are my medium, and yet for all of my fear and frustration, I felt mute once the results were in, silenced by the forces of “we all need to pull together now and accept what has happened.”

I tried to be in this place, I swear I did, but after a week or two of hearing the improbable words “President-elect Trump” I wasn’t even close to being there. So, it was something of a relief to me to be included in on the following email from one old friend of mine to another. My friend said:

I recall you never warmed to Hillary, but I appreciate that you overcame your misgivings to vote for her. The likability debate always perplexed me, particularly from other women. We’re not electing prom queen here, or favorite mom or grandmother. There’s been a 30-plus year drumbeat from her Republican detractors about what a conniving b—– she is. A lot of it is raging sexism and just general Clinton hating. News flash: Things were pretty good when Bill Clinton was president, but let’s bash Hillary for her pantsuits and not being warm and fuzzy enough. During the election, I’ve taken these attacks on Hillary very personally. I’ve experienced a lot of sexism, and now ageism, in my life. I don’t suffer fools gladly, and neither does Hillary, a quality that is seldom appreciated in women but OK for men.  And when Hillary takes the knocks, I feel them.

I do know plenty of Trump supporters and the fact that they sincerely believe they made the right choice only scares me for this country.

Really? You thought the narcissistic cretin was a better choice than Hillary, I would say to them? The guy who penned in the media and egged on his sycophants to jeer them? Are you familiar with the First Amendment?

You think it’s OK to diss a Gold Star family? To mock a disabled person? To build a wall on the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it? To challenge our president’s birth certificate? To have an inner circle of racists and con men who spread utter lies in their fake news outlets? To barge into a dressing room with naked young women who work for you? To brag about grabbing women by their pussies? To insist that women who aren’t beautiful (in your opinion) be gotten rid of at your clubs? To build your empire by cheating the little guy? To brag about not paying your taxes? To refuse to release your tax returns? To threaten our allies? To suck up to Putin?

And so on.

This is not a normal Republican, with a platform that I might disagree with but could understand on some level. Trump’s platform was mostly fear of the other, pent-up racism against Obama and general paranoia. During the debates, he dodged intelligent discourse in favor of “such a nasty woman” and “crooked Hillary.”
I don’t need to listen to Trump supporters, or respect them, either. Many of them DO seem ignorant. How could you listen to the debates and not come to a basic conclusion about who was the superior candidate? Wait, you didn’t listen to the debates! You didn’t need to! Anyone would be better than Hillary!

I’m not interested in a Trump supporter’s convoluted explanation of why they aren’t a racist, homophobic, and so on. If they voted for Trump, they were saying that all of the unforgivable things he said and did, and will continue to do and say, were preferable to voting for one of the most qualified candidates we’ve had.

As we move forward, I’m proud to be with the people who won’t normalize Trump’s behavior. With a Congress that is stacked in his favor, it won’t be easy.

These days, my theme song is, “I won’t back down.”

Yeah. Exactly what she said. And just in case you don’t remember the Tom Petty classic, here is a memory refresher for you to enjoy.

It’s been almost two weeks now since I received that email, and I keep looking for signs of hope that the governing of these wonderful United States is not going to be reduced to a reality TV show, wherein contestants are egged on and judged in one man’s twitter account. I’m not seeing a lot of hope.

What I am seeing are signs that there are people from all walks of life who share my concerns: people with whom I might have guessed that I had little in common. My sports loving husband had me listen to an interview with the San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and at the end I stood up and cheered. From the evangelical Christian point of view came an article written by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers of Oklahoma City that reminded me of the compassion and love embedded in true Christian faith. Meanwhile trans woman, atheist and civil rights activist Danielle Muscato tore into The Donald on twitter and her words could not have reflected my own thoughts better. Either. What these three people have in common in my opinion is that they are compassionate and aware humans.

So, yeah, instead of being able to find encouragement in The Donald’s excellent cabinet picks and his swivel to embrace the importance of the job to which he has been elected, I am having to take comfort in the words of those who are as appalled as I am. As for the folks who thought any change was good change, well, I am not ready to make nice.

In fact, that wonderful tune from the Dixie Chicks is probably my theme song right now. Remember that this song was written in response to the outrage fans expressed when the Dixie Chicks criticized George Bush for invading Iraq. If you haven’t heard it in awhile, view it through the eyes of 2016, a time when evading Iraq looks incredibly stupid and yet George Bush doesn’t look half as inept as he once did.

There is one more song running through my head these days. I’m updating the music page for this blog, and I’ve gotten to the last song referred to in the book c3, “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” recorded by Patty Loveless in 1993.

It’s true that my least favorite thing about country music has always been its tendency to be overly sentimental. So when “How Can I Help You Say Good-bye” was suggested to me for c3 by my country music consultant, I winced. Then I played it through a few times just to try the idea on. Yes, it made me cry, but behind those words designed to easily coax out tears, I heard a wisdom about accepting the pain in life. The more I played the song, the more the underlying message spoke to me, until soon it made it’s way into the end of my book and onto the short list of country songs I do like.

Today I’m thinking that there is message in there for me. We say goodbye to all sorts of things in life; childhood friends and those we love and ideas that matter to us. Having a woman president meant a lot to me, perhaps more than I realized before the election. For all my righteous frustration with the childishness of the incoming administration, I need to let go of the idea that I am going to see a woman president anytime soon, at least in the next four years. I’m particularly fond of this simple version of the song performed live on television by Patty Loveless.

Accept and move on. That doesn’t mean backing down on my principles.  It does not mean making nice with the people who put us into this mess. In fact, hanging on to what I believe and refusing to look the other way regarding hateful behavior is going to help me get out of this funk. I’m determined to find a way to say goodbye to a world that is not going to be, and then to work my hardest to see that four years from now I’m singing a very different kind of song.

The Power of Three

On By Sherrie CroninIn writing1 Comment

I joined a small writers group recently and it has added new energy to my story telling. Perhaps I should point out that the group is small in number, not short in stature, and that a lot of the energy I feel comes from the fact the others also write a sort of fantasy – science fiction- metaphysical melange like I do.

life lessons11We hold animated discussions about how telepathy works and how to write a phrase readers will want to quote and the other day we got started on ideas that are inherently powerful, even magic if you will. The best example we could find was the power of the number three.

Make three wishes. Blood, sweat and tears. ABC. The popularity of a trilogy. Star Wars’ brilliant three trilogies. Yes, I even wrote a whole fiction book called “C to the power of three.” The Huffington Post has a fun article on threes and marketing experts are happy to advise you on how to harness its power.

But no one seems to have this figured out better than those who compose country western songs. Seriously. I was not well acquainted with the musical genre before I wrote c3, but my hero Teddie was clearly a fan of it. I had made sounds tracks for the main characters in my other books and was compelled to do the same here. So I sought out CW songs that fit my story and Teddie’s personality and yet which I liked okay too. You can find all of them on the music page for this blog.

Almost every song tells a story, unlike most music in other genres. Every story is told in three parts. Always three parts. Each story is more compelling than you would expect, grabbing your heartstrings with an almost magical grip. Past, present future. The power of three.

Today I updated the music page with more details about my schmaltziest song, “Laughed Until We Cried” performed by Jason Aldean. Dammit I don’t like sappy music, but this one gets me every time. It must be that three thing that he uses so well.

Enjoy this excerpt from where the song appears in the book, and then enjoy the video at the end.  Grab a tissue. That power of three thing might get to you also.

Ariel got word from work that she had to leave a day early for a business meeting in Germany and Teddie was surprised to find herself sad at the news. The night before Ariel left, the two sisters sat together at the kitchen table, laughing and reminiscing, and Teddie realized how helpful it had been to have a relative close by as she went through this. She went to bed with a touching song about reliving family memories called “Laughed Until We Cried” playing in her head.

In spite of the soothing start to the night, she woke up a couple of hours later, filled with worry. On Lawan’s advice she had refrained from traveling in her mist body since the surgery, and she was growing more concerned about Usha by the day. She looked down and saw Usha, and she thought she was dreaming. Then as the absolute silence sunk in, she realized that she had gone traveling without meaning to.

Usha lay sleeping, fully dressed in robes that looked much like Lhatu’s. She was sleeping on a mat in someone’s kitchen. She seemed fine, but Teddie thought that there would be no harm in looking around a little more to make sure.

Teddie entered each room. Usha was in a home with two parents and three children. It was small and simple, but also clean, warm and cozy, and well decorated with children’s art. Teddie was going to go out on a limb and guess that the mat in the kitchen constituted the family’s guest room. These nice people must have taken her in for the night. Teddie felt an odd pang that for all the much-touted hospitality and generosity in her own home of Texas, no one she knew would even dream of providing lodging to a traveling stranger. And sadly, it was often wise that they did not do so.

She tried to see any detail at all that might help her figure out whose home this was. The children’s art, the handmade furniture, even the pile of shoes by the door. It was true, she knew it for a fact. If she could just bring back a picture of any one of these, it could be circulated around and somebody somewhere would recognize this place. Teddie stared hard at each scene, wishing she could memorize and redraw it. What a crying shame that she could not.

She woke up with tears of frustration in her eyes and as she rubbed the water away, she knew it. She simply knew how to do it. She crept into the den where Lawan and Awut both slept, and she shook her trainer awake. Awut took one look at her face and he could tell as well.

Videos taken at a concert can be good or downright awful, and this one of Jason Aldean performing “Laughed Until We Cried” live at Memorial Coliseum in Ft. Wayne, Indiana on October 22, 2010 is one of the good kind. It captures the energy of the crowd and feel of the concert while still providing enough reasonable quality audio and video for the viewer to enjoy the music.

“Because I Can”

On By Sherrie CroninIn women5 Comments

beautiful life6Not sure when women got March as Women’s History month, but I’m glad they did. Her story isn’t told nearly as often as history. It is a little surprising, though, that along with this attempt to add more balance to our knowledge of the past, there is suddenly a wealth of sites celebrating songs that empower women. Buzz Feed offers 17 Empowering Songs By Female Artists To Boost Your Self-Esteem, The BoomBox has 20 songs to celebrate the superwoman in you, and vh1 has The 15 Greatest Girl Power Anthems. Each site features best lines from the song, the reason the song is great, and a video to enjoy.

I thought it was interesting that only three songs showed up twice.  The honors go to “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child, “Stronger” by Britney Spears and the all time classic “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. It is worth checking out all three sites, but if you are just curious which songs were chosen, an alphabetical list of all 49 songs is at the end of this post.

Do you have one or two of your own to add? Of course you do. We all have our personal favorites.

I needed to find an anthem celebrating female power when I was writing c3, but because my hero was a fan of country music, I needed to find it in that genre. Country music isn’t my own first choice for listening, so I couldn’t think of a single one. I did a search and was surprised at the number of contenders. I finally settled on a song commonly called “Because I Can” by LeAnn Rimes and after listening to it and writing about it, I’ve come to really appreciate it. Here is how it got used in the book.

Teddie returned to her room mid-morning and pushed herself to stay awake through the rest of the day’s classes. Most of her life she’d been a good student, and she was trying to accept the fact that this year would be the exception. While kids back home were already stressing out about college applications, Teddie could only trust that her sense of adventure in spending a year abroad was going to count for something.

LeAnnShe was hoping for a nap before dinner, but Haley was already in the room, happily singing along to one of Teddie’s favorite country songs. Haley preferred pop and rock, but she had slowly warmed to some of Teddie’s music. Right now she was belting out the empowering words to song often referred to as “Because I Can”. It was impossible not to ask what was going on.

“One blogger called it ‘Barbie climbs Everest,’” Haley laughed, “and you know what? Even though I am not climbing Everest, I wasn’t offended.”

“Can I assume that means that you are part of the expedition again?” Teddie asked.

Haley’s wide grin was answer enough. “’Cami girl’—that’s my other name—‘set to climb Kanchenjunga.’ That was the other big blog’s headline. I can’t believe that it is really going to happen. You do know that this means that I am out of here in less than a week?

“What? Why? You don’t climb until May,” Teddie said.

“I know, but I’ve decided that I’ve got to spend more time adjusting to a higher altitude. We’re only at 6,700 feet here, so my dad is coming in a few days. We’re going to drive up to Lachen. It’s only about fifty miles from Gangtok but takes six hours to drive. It’s supposed to be gorgeous, and it’s at almost nine thousand feet. After a few days there we’ll drive up to Thangu at thirteen-thousand feet, and I’ve decided that I’m going to live there until the climb. I’m even going to let my dad do all the last minute coaching and training that he thinks he needs to do, because if I’m going to do this I have got to stack the deck in my favor every way that I can.”

Haley gestured to the pile of schoolwork on her desk. “I’m bringing my schoolwork with me, even though I’ll probably have to take incompletes in everything.” She looked hard at Teddie. “Are you going to be alright here by yourself?”

Teddie had to laugh. “Haley, you are about to go do something where people actually die, and you’re worried about me?”

“Well, there’s a lot going on here too.”

The song is also called “One Way Ticket.”  LeAnn Rimes gives the lyrics everything she’s got in this well-made video of her and her band performing it live. Enjoy.

Here are the songs from the other three sites.

  1. A Woman’s Worth by Alicia Keys
  2. Body Of My Own by Charli XCX
  3. Bust Your Windows by Jazmine Sullivan
  4. Can’t Hold Us Down by Christina Aguilera (ft Lil Kim)
  5. Conceited by Remy Ma
  6. Control by Janet Jackson
  7. Doo Wop (That Thing )by Lauryn Hill
  8. F**kin’ Perfect by P!nk
  9. Feeling Myself by Nicki Minaj (feat Beyoncé)
  10. Fight Song by Rachel Platten
  11. Flawless by Beyoncé ft Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
  12. Fly by Nicki Minaj Feat Rihanna
  13. Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgraves
  14. Freedom  by Queen Latifah, Yo Yo, Lisa Left Eye Lopes, MC Lyte, Nefertiti, Salt-N-Pepa
  15. Girl Talk by TLC
  16. Girls by Santigold
  17. Goodbye by Kristina DeBarge
  18. Hair by Lady Gaga
  19. I Look So Good (Without You) by Jessie James
  20. I’m Every Woman by Chaka Khan
  21. Independent Women by Destiny’s Child
  22. Ladies First by Queen Latifah Feat Monie Love
  23. Love Me by Katy Perry
  24. Love Myself by Hailee Steinfeld
  25. Man! I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain
  26. Milkshake by Kelis
  27. No More Drama by Mary J Blige
  28. No Scrubs by TLC
  29. None of Your Business by Salt-N-Pepa
  30. Obsessed by Mariah Carey
  31. On My Own by Miley Cyrus
  32. One In A Million by Hilary Duff
  33. Pretty Girl Rock by Keri Hilson
  34. QUEEN by Janelle Monae Feat Erykah Badu
  35. Respect by Aretha Franklin
  36. Run the World (Girls) by Beyonce
  37. Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles
  38. Shake It Out by Florence + The Machine
  39. Stay Beautiful by Taylor Swift
  40. Stronger by Britney Spears
  41. Try by Colbie Caillat
  42. Unpretty by TLC
  43. Video by India Aire
  44. Wannabe by Spice Girls
  45. Whatcha Think About That by Pussycat Dolls (ft Missy Elliot)
  46. Who Says by Selena Gomez
  47. Who’s That Girl by Eve
  48. You Can’t Play With My Yo-Yo by Yo-Yo Feat Ice Cube

 

Everywhere

On By Sherrie CroninIn women

crowdThe first few months after my father died, I kept seeing him in crowds at the airport, just out of the corner of my eye. He’d show up in restaurants too, and sometimes in bars, anywhere that there were lots of people. Often he’d be gone before I could get a good look at him, but every once in awhile I would get a closer look, and clearly see that it wasn’t him at all.

Years later I read that this was common for those missing a loved one. It was a disconcerting side effect of death, divorce, serious break-ups, deployment overseas or any prolonged physical separation.

The country-western songs referred to in the novel c3 came from a larger group of songs suggested by a young female C&W fan. I knew the first time that I heard her suggestion of Tim McGraw’s song “Everywhere” that I wanted my character to like this song and mention it. Love comes in all sorts of flavors: that of a child for a parent who dies too young, that of a young girl worried about a missing friend, that of a man who has said good-bye to childhood sweetheart but never really left her. Those of us who suffer a loss (isn’t that all of us) tend to see our missing person “everywhere”.

From the novel c3:

Tim McgrawAs Teddie worked her way through the relaxation and concentration exercises, she was all too aware that this would be her first conscious travel attempt over any distance. It was sort of like that first time you take off driving all by yourself.

To keep from being nervous, Teddie let her mind play a soothing song, and found that she was humming “Everywhere,” the country music tribute to a man who loved to travel and yet saw his stay-at-home ex-girlfriend in the crowd wherever he went. That was funny. Over the last couple of months it had seemed like she’d seen Michelle everywhere she looked. Must be a common thing when you missed someone.

Teddie thought sadly of the used black and white two-tone pick-up truck setting in her folks’ driveway. She’d only been able to drive by herself for four months before she’d headed to India. She thought of all the places she and Michelle had driven in it before they left and all the places they hadn’t yet gotten a chance to explore. She felt a little pang, and then there she was. Standing outside her truck in the blazing sunlight. Of course. It was daytime in Texas. Her folks were at work. Her truck looked fine. She touched its faded paint lovingly but she couldn’t feel it like she could in the solid world. “I’ll be back in a few months,” she mouthed the words. Then she added, “Now I want to go to my friend Michelle.”

Right away she began to move quickly, speeding down the sidewalk and then down streets and she thought, “Wait, I know this route. I’m on my way to Michelle’s house.” And sure enough, Teddie found herself on Michelle’s front lawn, baffled. Had Michelle come home? She hesitated, feeling odd about invading the Tran’s privacy. She told herself sternly that her friend’s safety was at stake. The outside wall of their house was harder to penetrate than the walls at Usha’s convent, instead of merely tickling her, it left Teddie with a feeling of passing through some kind of unpleasant mush as she went through it. Ick.

Inside it was deserted. Both Trans were at work as well, and Michelle’s room showed no signs of having been disturbed any time recently.

“Take me home,” Teddie said in frustration. She felt a momentary confusion, as if on some level she was trying to decide if home was across town or across a world. That’s when she realized that she had somehow covered thousands of miles and crossed an ocean and she had no idea of how she had done it. She froze in absolute terror.

There are several decent enough concert videos out there of this song, but the ones I watched all made me feel a little too much like I was in the audience, right there with the crowd noise and the bodies occasionally blocking my view. This acoustic version is a little different. It is performed at a fancy dinner with violins, acoustic guitars, a back-up female vocalist and a couple dancing in the back of the audience. I thought that it all captured the song well. Enjoy!

You can purchase this song at Amazon.com. 

“Get Out of This Town”

On By Sherrie CroninIn women

We’ve all had that feeling. We’ve got to get somewhere, anywhere else. It can be a combination of weather (it’s snowing again?), friends and ex-friends, relatives that are driving us crazy, an insane boss or teacher, or in the worse of cases, all of the above. Anyone’s couch in a town far away sounds incredibly comfy.

Teddie hits her fed-up point mid-winter in Darjeeling, as she shares a room with a friend training to climb a mountain and finds herself avoiding everyone else at the school because she is tired of their questions about another friend who has gone missing. She doesn’t have the luxury of leaving, but at least she has her music, especially “Get Out of This Town” performed by Carrie Underwood

carrie underwoodDarjeeling stayed dreary and cold as school started, and for days on end the beautiful mountains could not even be seen. Teddie spent a lot of time avoiding the other students at the school so she would not have to answer their questions about Michelle, even though her slightly drafty dorm room was not the refuge she would have liked.

Haley spent most her free time in the room as well, using the impressive array of workout equipment that her father had insisted on sending back to India with her. She had weights and ab straps, rotating push-up bars and some sort of cardio jump device, and she used them all like her life depended on it. Teddie supposed it kind of did. However the net result was that the dorm room was generally filled with Haley’s grunts and groans, and it was now starting to smell like a locker room too. Teddie went out and bought some fruit-scented air freshener.

She tried doing the few exercises that Lhatu had left her with, but compared with Haley’s workout, they just seemed silly. Lhatu’s one week of waiting dragged on to two, and Teddie found herself spending more and more time curled up in her bed under the covers. She wanted to go home. She was supposed to be home, dammit. She found “Get out of this Town” on her MP3 player and started to listen to it over and over until it became her personal anthem.

You’ll feel like you’re exactly where Teddie wants to be; in a front row seat in this country-western bar in Green Bay Wisconsin as you watch this homemade video of Carrie Underwood performing her hit song live.

You can purchase this song at Amazon.com.

“You’re Gonna Miss This”

On By Sherrie CroninIn women

To me, this song is the very best of teary-eyed country music wisdom, schmaltzy and absolutely true at the same time. I’ve written a few times on this blog about the big changes I’ve made in my own life over the last several months, leaving a career and moving across the county and so on. Do I wish I’d savored things more before I changed them all? Eh ….what do you think? All I know is that I sure did a fair amount of crying as I just watched this.

Read this short excerpt from c3, and then find a tissue and enjoy “You’re Gonna Miss This” performed by Trace Adkins.

Trace AdkinsIt was the last week of school before the Christmas break started on Friday, December 16. Each of the girls was almost done with end-of-semester tests and papers, with only a couple of more deadlines left. Michelle had mixed feelings about her three-week trip back to the U.S. during the winter break, and Haley was determined to talk her parents into letting her come back to India for the next semester. Since August, Teddie had been counting the days until Sunday the eighteenth when her parents would arrive from Texas, brother Zane from Chicago and Ariel from London. The Zeitman reunions tended to be lively affairs, and if it happened at no other time during the year, they all five always managed to be together at Christmas.

Teddie knew that there would be nice hotels, and fancy meals out, and presents her mother would have insisted on hand carrying all the way over. Then Zane and Ariel would go back to their lives as grown-ups, and Teddie would go back to Texas with her parents and be a regular junior in high school. She’d get to wear her boots and jeans to school again, drive her truck to any fast food restaurant that struck her fancy, and get to blare her country music as loud as she pleased while she did so.

But the country song she heard in her head as she thought about it was “You’re Gonna Miss This.” Damn.

Now that the prospect of all those wonderful things was so close, she wasn’t nearly as excited about it as she once had been. A piece of her now was of Indian spices and silly, British-looking school uniforms and brightly colored weaves and noise and bodies closer together than any Texan would like. She enjoyed the strange way her classmates made English sound so exotic. A part of her looked at Junga every day, and even though she wasn’t going to climb it herself, a piece of her was of the mountain. She didn’t know how to say it plainer. A part of her had nestled into Darjeeling and gotten comfy, and now wasn’t so anxious to leave.

You can purchase this song at Amazon.com.

Heads Carolina

On By Sherrie CroninIn women4 Comments

I am not the fan of country music that my character Teddie is, but there is one song in her story that skyrocketed into my list of favorite songs as I was writing this book. A good bit of how much we like music has to do with our own circumstances, doesn’t it? I wrote c3 at a time when my husband and I were contemplating a major move from Texas to one coast or the other.  I was lobbying for Oregon or Northern California, he was pushing for something along the coast in South Carolina. New Mexico became the compromise that neither of us quite wanted. Then we started talking about the mountains of Western North Carolina and everything seemed to come together.

It’s not surprising that “Heads Carolina Tails California”  by Jo Dee Messina became my theme song for a few months.  In the end “heads” won for us, but I will always think fondly of the Pacific coast, and of the restlessness in this song.

A Girl from Texas

On By Sherrie CroninIn writing4 Comments

I believe that one telling characteristic of a person is the music they enjoy. So how could I not feel the same way about my characters? I think about what songs they like (and their favorite foods and favorite sorts of entertainment) as I am getting to know them early in the process of creating my novels.

Each main character from my five books has a distinctive list of favorite songs, many of which are woven into the story. Teddie likes country music (and cowboy boots and Tex-Mex food). You learn this and more about her from this scene early in the novel.

At night, Teddie took refuge from all the strangeness. The collage of colors and faces and smells that permeated her world now by day subsided into the comforting greys of darkness. She lay in her bed and thought of how much she missed boots. Western boots, on her and others. Pickup trucks and country music and bar-b-que and dead armadillos in the road. Now wasn’t that stupid? Pine trees and Tex-Mex food and front lawns and churches everywhere even though her family didn’t belong to one. It was her world, and she missed its familiarity.

Luckily she had been able to keep her MP3 player, and sometimes she thought that the music was saving her sanity. She fell asleep that night crying softly and listening to the song “Texas Kind of Way” while she smelled the musty non-flower smell of her mother’s geraniums in her head. And that was the night that she starting sleepwalking.

Enjoy this video of Cody Johnson performing the song live.

The fact is that I started each of my novels off with a special song. Click to read about x0’s “Time After Time“,  y1’s “A Whole New World“, z2’s “Fame” and d4’s “Lights“.

You can purchase “A Texas Kind of Way” at Amazon.com. You can purchase c3 at Amazon.com, too.