Recommend A Track: Shot to The Heart

kelly-and-bruceLast Thursday, Bill and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. It’s been a wonderful run so far. Of all the positive things that I can say, my favorite thing about our marriage is that we are best friends. In fact, before we ever started dating, we were best friends. So, it’s nice that the same is still true today and it would be devistating if it should ever change.

I’m certainly no marriage expert, but I think that being friends is central to a successful marriage. Not only does it make the days more bearable, it helps to insure that we will give to each other at least as much as we would to our friends.

With that said, I am fully aware that being friends in a marriage isn’t always as easy as we would all hope it would be. Like any friendship, it’s something that must be worked on and cannot be taken for granted.

As I listened to music today, “Friendless Marriage” from Bruce Robison’s Country Sunshine came on my iPod. Robison sings this heartbreakingly sad song with his wife, Kelly Willis. It’s always a treat when Willis joins her husband on a track, but this is an especially noteworthy collaboration. As is always the case when I hear”Friendless Marriage”, I was struck by their subdued performance of a song that never ceases to catch my attention and pierce my heart.

Robison and Willis sing from the perspective of a couple who can remember a time when they were full of passion for each other. However, the passion is gone now and they’ve discovered that they have nothing left to hold onto. They’ve reconciled themselves to the knowledge that they’re in a friendless marriage. Robison’s character admits that the only thing that is holding them together is the obligation to responsibility that has been instilled in him by the example of family history:

“She don’t seem to smile no more, or look me in the eye/I don’t say a thing at all or hold her when she cries/But we weren’t raised to run from our responsibilities/So I stay for my baby like my mama stayed for me.”

What’s your recommendation?

 

If you’re looking for direction:

What powerful relationship song do you recommend?

15 Comments

  1. Interesting the theme this week is relationship song. Kenny Chesney take a lot of heat for having so many tropical music and stuff like that, but I love his live CD. Yes, the song I’m recommending was a single, but the live version wasn’t and I consider it so much better. I’m recommending “Anything but Mine” (The Live Version). It’s a great powerful relationship song and my favorite song of his in his catalog.

  2. First of all happy anniversary.

    I love “Still Here” by Melinda Schneider and Paul Kelly. Not that powerful, but Just a nice little reflection of how things can be after a while in a long term relationship.

    Yet to reach anything like this myself, but it seems quite a nice place to be.

    Watch and listen On youtube

  3. A few come to mind. First off, while a lot of their combined catalog is more fluff than stuff, “I Need You” by Tim and Faith is by far their most powerful duet, and was the highlight when I saw them live two years ago. Trisha & Garth singing “Like We Never Had a Broken Heart” stirs me every time, and “Look at Us” by Vince Gill has to be one of the most beautiful odes to longevity.

    Here’s to the both of you…many happy returns!

  4. The song “Make It Rain” by One Flew South seems to correlate to the Bruce Robison song mentioned above. As for great love songs, “She’s A Gift” from the same “Last of the Good Guys” CD by OFS really is great too.

  5. PinMonkey’s 2006 “Big Shiny Cars” CD has a song written by Sean Locke and Billy Montana, “Coldest Fire In Town” with Elizabeth Cook and Rusty Young, that fits in the theme here.

    We both hide it well
    Nobody here can tell
    What’s going on behind our deceiving smiles

    They all look at you and me
    Filled with jealousy
    They think when we leave
    We’re gonna go home and burn it down

    They don’t know
    We got the coldest fire in town

    What once was paradise
    Has slowly turned to ice
    And it won’t be long before this flame burns out
    We both know
    We got the coldest fire in town

    There used to be a time
    We didn’t have to live a lie
    Our love was everything
    That it appeared to be
    But now we carry on
    Just like nothings wrong
    It’s all ashes and smoke
    Not an ember to be found

    We both know
    We got the coldest fire in town

    Just a little side note: I recently discovered this site and have post a few times so far. Ya’ll seem like an interesting group and I’ve found all of the topics here interesting.

  6. Congrats, you two! :) All the best..

    My recommendation, (though I’m certainly no relationship expert) is “Witness to Your Life” by Lori McKenna..it’s on her “Unglamorous” album.

    The chorus is almost like a marraige vow..”..and I will be that witness to your life”, a song of deep, loving validation.

  7. Congrats on five years together! :) I’m loving Martina McBride’s “I just call you mine” from Shine, which is love song. It’s really beautiful, imo.

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