It’s Sunday so it’s back to music that inspires me.  Before this week’s blog, written just before I left for a concert by Sting and Billy Joel, I want to comment on the concert.

Both are amazing musicians and performers. Both are in their early 70s and put on an incredible show. Both brought me back to the late 1970s and early 1980s with their music, as vibrant today as it was when released. That’s the power of music. I sat with my 21 year old son Matthew, his 21 year old girlfriend Carla, and my wife, as we all enjoyed the show. Matthew was amazed when Sting performed one of his songs that was recently sampled by a current artist. Carla was in shock when I explained to her that Scenes from an Italian Restaurant was actually 3 unfinished songs that Billy Joel creatively crafted into an all time classic. We sang, we danced, and we enjoyed the music and the performance. My favorite was Billy Joel imitating Mick Jagger as he sang Start Me Up and did his interpretation of Mick’s dancing. I may write about this concert and what it meant to me later, but it felt wrong not to mention it in a post about music a few hours after experiencing such a powerful few hours of music.

Now onto the song I wanted to discuss.

Luke Combs got a lot of attention at the Grammy’s with his duet with Tracy Chapman.  If somehow you haven’t seen it, watch it.  If you have seen it, watch it again.  There is so much that is truly remarkable about it.  You could see how in awe of her he was and how honored he was to have the chance to sing with her.  It’s a song written by a queer woman of color in the 1980s that was a big hit then and covered by a white country star in 2023 who didn’t change the pronouns and had no problem singing it as written.  And the lyrics speak about the challenges of the American dream in the 1980s that is perhaps even more relevant today.  There is a lesson for us all there that could be an entire different blog post.

I saw Tracy Chapman in concert when I was in college, and it was an amazing show.  She is an amazing artist.  And so is Luke Combs.  I’ve always been a fan of hers and have become a big fan of his and have many of his songs that I love.  Today I want to talk about his song, “Does to me.“

Released in 2019, it makes me feel better that I am only 5 years behind the music curve.  Like a number of amazing songs, Eric Church is also featured.  The lyrics read:

I was a third-string dreamer on a second-place team
But I was hell on wheels with a full head of steam
When coach put me in
And I’m still proud of that hit

To start a song with true self-awareness is an amazing choice.  Most of us like to brag about the size of the fish that we almost caught.  Or we talk about the star player we played with or against.  The superstar we met or saw nearby to us.  The hole in one we almost made, the local tennis tournament we won or almost won.  We glory in greatness or close to greatness.  Yet here is Luke Combs talking about being a third string player who wasn’t very good on a team that wasn’t very good.  It’s about as far from greatness as possible.  When he finally got a chance to play, he was so proud that he actually got a chance to play and did something in the game.  He doesn’t get into any details of ‘that hit’, who it was against, or that anybody else thought it was something special.  Just that he got into the game, played, and made a tackle.  He is bragging about making one tackle.  Not leading the team, not making a key or important tackle to anybody but himself.

We often judge ourselves by other people’s outsides.  What looks good or important.  We forget about what might really be important to us and the things we value.  The songs opening stanza is a reminder that we only need judge ourselves against ourselves.  He knows he isn’t a good player.  He wants to be on the team and is appreciative that he got a chance to actually play.  That one hit is enough for him.  He doesn’t have to be Al Bundy from Married with Children constantly remembering his 4 touchdowns at Polk High School 30 years later.  What makes that funny is we can all relate to that desire for greatness and adoration from the outside when what really matters is what’s inside.

I was a last resort to go to prom with the queen
Thanks to an ex-boyfriend who broke her heart that week
No, I didn’t get luck
But I still felt like a king

Once again, Luke Combs is self-deprecating.  He was the last resort for the prom queen because her boyfriend broke up with her that week AND he didn’t have a date.  Think about what it’s like to acknowledge that yes, I went with the prom queen but only because the week of prom, I didn’t have a date and she suddenly became single.  He’s proudly beating his chest saying I was the best choice of the bottom of the barrel of options for her. 

Once again, he understands who he is and what is important to him.  He got to go to the prom with the queen.  That’s all that matters.  How it happened is a fact but doesn’t define him.  It wasn’t a romantic prom experience, but it was a prom experience that he will forever be grateful to have had. And he can always say he went to prom with the prom queen!

Many things in life are like that for all of us.  If we focus on all the details of the how they happened, we miss out on the great experience.  Many years ago, I took my kids to a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game.  We didn’t have great tickets, but they weren’t bad ones.  Yet when we walked into the ballpark, for some reason they chose us to get the Stubhub upgraded tickets.  We sat behind the Orioles bullpen and my kids had fun talking to the Orioles relievers the entire game.  One of them even gave my kids baseballs. 

Well more than a decade later, we still talk about the experience and laugh about the funny things they talked to the players about.  We could have focused on the fact that it was the Orioles, not the Rays bullpen.  We could have focused on the fact that players they interacted with were not stars.  Instead Major League players (and Mark Hendrickson in particular) spent most of the game talking with them. Focusing on anything else would only diminish the experience.  Something similar happened at a UFC fight we went to last year.  Sedriques “The Reaper” Dumas came into the stands and they stopped him, took pictures, and spent a minute talking with him and hanging out.  It was a fun moment and I only remember his name because it was unique.  I’d never heard of him before but we thoroughly enjoyed the moment.

Combs is telling us to enjoy the moment when they come.  It doesn’t matter why or how they come.  Live in the moment, appreciate the cool and fun things when they happen.  Otherwise we miss the moment and they don’t come around often enough.

And that might not mean much to you
But it does to me

This is point of the entire song.  Our life experiences that we value don’t have to mean anything to anybody else.  They only have to matter to us.  As a kid, I was a huge baseball fan (I still am).  I followed both college and the minor leagues.  The college player of the year in 1982 was a guy named Jeff Ledbetter. He attended Florida State. He had been drafted by the Yankees (my favorite team) out of high school and that year was drafted by the Red Sox (their rival) in the first round.  At my summer camp, we used to go to see the Hagerstown Suns (Orioles minor league team) play.  That year they played the Red Sox minor league team and Jeff Ledbetter was on the team and playing.  I was so excited to watch him play.  My friends laughed at me because they’d never heard of him and I was acting as if he was a major league star.  During the game, I went near the bench, found him, and engaged in a conversation.  In 1982, having a fan know who you are in the minor leagues and seek you was a big deal, so he was happy to talk to me during the game.  He even gave me some of his chewing tobacco which I tried (and got sick under the bleachers). I got his autograph and was beyond excited and happy for weeks.  And my friends kept laughing at me.  It didn’t matter to me.  41 years later, I still remember him, the conversation, and the experience because it mattered to me.

We all have stories like this.  It may be a college band.  An author we fell in love with at some point in our life.  The local sports or weather broadcaster on the news.  The high school star athlete when we are in middle or elementary school.  It doesn’t matter who they are in general, only in how they matter to us at that point in our lives.  We treasure those moments because they mark a special time in our life.  We should enjoy them when they come because they don’t come often enough.

So say I’m a middle of the road
Not much to show
Underachieving, average Joe
But I’m a hell of a lover
A damn good brother
And I wear this heart on my sleeve
And that might not mean much to you
But it does to me

Once again, it’s amazing to see somebody so proud of who they are.  Self-awareness is so critical in the world and most of us struggle with it.  We think we are more important that we are, that our roles and titles define us, how much money we make equates to our value.  There has been a loss of pride in doing what we do as best as we can and that being enough.  I think of my grandfathers and what they did.  One owned a 5 and dime with a luncheonette across from the GE factory with his brother-in-law, my great uncle.  Working class, high character, good citizen, good husband, father, grandfather.  The other one worked managing low-income housing with his 2 partners, an accountant and attorney.  They handled the business side; he handled the management and people side.  I’ll never forget that he would get up early, go to the Bridgeport JCC to exercise and have a ‘soak and a schvitz’ (hot tub and steam room) and then come back to have breakfast with my grandmother.  Blue collar, hardworking, good husband, father, and grandfather.  Both were exceptional people and could have been called ‘average Joe’s’.  Neither were flashy.  Neither measured their worth by what they did for a living or how much money they had.  They were good people first. Active community members and true role models.

The second half of the lyric highlights what is important.  Hell of a lover, damn good brother, and not embarrassed to have a heart and let it show.  The final two sentences show that those are the things that matter.  It’s about setting our priorities.  It’s about values.  It’s about ethics.  It’s about what matters to each of us.  I’ve yet to be at a funeral where people reveled in the house the person owned, the car they drove, the jewelry that they wore.  They always talk about the person they were.  Their values.  How they impacted the world.  Their behavior and their actions.  It’s yet another lesson to not judge our insides by other people’s outsides. 

I was the one phone call when my brother went to jail
Pawned my guitar just to pay his bail
No, I will never get it back
But I’m okay with that

Reliability.  Responsibility.  Dependability.  That’s what this verse adds to morals, values, and ethics.  In the example he sings about, he can be depended upon by his family and friends.  He understands what’s important in life, family, and that things can always be replaced.  And if we don’t ever replace the things, they are just things.  Things are designed to be enjoyed and an added bonus to our lives, they are not the key to enjoying our lives. 

Most of my life, I was obsessed with getting the things that I wanted.  The newest technology.  The biggest TV.  I remember getting my first real component stereo system when I was 13 (for those of you too young to know what this was, it was the most incredible thing in the world).  The best car, the nicest and biggest house.  Today, while I appreciate the things I have, I’m just as happier if I have less.  I don’t need the new car or the bigger house.  I’m happy with my phone, which is a few years old, and my TVs, which aren’t the newest nor the biggest.  I have a little Bluetooth speaker to listen to music that cost less than my first turntable.  The things I have enhance my life, they don’t define it.  My family, my mom, my in-laws, siblings, cousins and friends are what’s important.  I’d rather spend the money to go to my cousin’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in Chicago than buy some other toy.   It’s so nice having less because I actually have more.

I was the first man standing next to my best friend
The day the love of his life said “I do” to him
I was a couple beers deep
But I still remembered that speech
And that might not mean much to you
But it does to me

I have had the privilege of being the best man a few times in family and friend’s weddings.  I even had a chance to officiate a friend’s wedding last month!  The opportunity to be present for these life events are priceless.  Where before I may have found an excuse to not go, letting my life be too busy to take the time, spend the money, or whatever excuse I came up with, I have realized that there is nothing like being there when loved ones celebrate special occasions.  The most valuable thing in life is time and the people we choose to spend it with.  Over the past 25 years, I have made choices and spent time with people that when I look back, weren’t worth the time or the opportunity cost of doing so.  Today I get to choose who I want to be around.  Who is worth my time.  Who do I want in my life and why are they important.  It’s a much smaller group of people but it’s a much more impactful group of people.  It’s a lesson that I wish I had learned earlier in life and certainly one that I am actively teaching my children now.  I want them to understand that people will show you who they are and use that to ensure they don’t have to waste the time that I did with people who show you they don’t deserve it. 

There’s a worn-out blade that my Granddaddy gave me
My Mama’s first Bible, Daddy’s Don Williams vinyl
That first-fish-catching Zebco thirty-three
Well, that might not mean much to you
But it does to me

I have a number of things from my grandparents and my dad that are meaningful to me.  It’s not the financial value of them, it’s the emotional value.  I have my grandfather’s masonic ring that I can wear because, like him, I joined the Masons.  I have the newspaper covers from when Nixon resigned that my other grandfather had, which always reminds me of him and working in his basement workshop together.  We have the handmade wooden trucks that my wife’s grandfather made with his handwriting, signature and date on the bottom.  I have candlesticks and special China from my great grandmother than I still use.  It’s not the item itself that has the value, it’s the memories they bring up.  Once again, we are reminded that time and people are what matter.  The memories we make with people are what last forever.  The stories we get to tell our children and grandchildren make them live for generations after they are gone.  I am not the handiest person in the world, but I have my grandfather’s tools because he was handy and used them constantly.  Holding them in my hand is like holding his hand, 25 years after he passed away. 

So say I’m a middle of the road
Not much to show
Underachieving average Joe
But I’m a hell of a lover
A damn good brother
And I wear this heart on my sleeve
And I’m a damn hard working
One thing’s for certain
I stand up for what I believe

And that might not mean much to you
But it does to me

The final stanza, while similar to one above, adds two key lines to highlight.  The first is working hard.  We live in a world today where hard work is often considered a four-letter word.  That working hard is related to compensation and if we don’t feel that we are compensated appropriately, we don’t work as hard.  This line reminds us that working hard is entirely about ourselves.  It’s about our values, our morals, our ethics.  We choose to work hard because it is who we are.  I remember when being told you worked hard was a complement that had nothing to do with a paycheck.  Hard work in school was its own reward.  As a 15 year old working part time at Wendy’s for $3.35 an hour I worked hard because I was taught that was what you did at a job, regardless of the pay.  It makes a statement about my values, not my wallet.  I have never forgotten that lesson.

As he finishes the song by saying “I stand up for what I believe.” I find myself thinking how important that is.  A friend used to say all the time that, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”  I think about that and often ask myself, what do I believe?  What is important to me?  What does society tell me matters that really doesn’t.  How much is ego driven instead of value driven?  What is the outcome I really want and if I don’t stand up for what I believe, can I get that outcome both externally and internally.  There have been times in my life when I have gotten the external outcome that I desired but internally it was empty.  It didn’t feel good.  There have been times where I didn’t get the external outcome I desired, however I stood up for what I believed and even though others might say that I ‘lost’, I actually won because at the end of the day, I felt good inside. 

I truly love this song because as I have said earlier, it reminds me not to judge my insides with other’s outsides.  It reminds me that what I choose to value and prioritize is what matters, not what society or other people tell me matters.  At the end of the day, if society views me as a success but internally, I am empty, I am not a success.  If I feel internally successful and value the way I live my life, nothing else matters.