Sounds of a Southern Summer

For country music artists, nature makes the finest muse

A drawing of the Whippoorwill bird, a bird commonly associated with southern folklore and country music

“Once upon a time, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”  -Terry Tempest Williams

During an interview while filming the series True Detective, actor Matthew McConaughey said in regards to shooting on location in the South, “...Mother Nature reigns supreme.” 

No truer words could be spoken when it comes to my beloved southern landscape. Indeed, Mother Nature does reign supreme in our neck of the woods.

As I’m writing this, I hear the slow, train-like rumble of a distant thunderstorm headed my way. Amid a symphony of cicadas, crepe myrtle blooms fall like southern snow. Even the oppressive heat resonates through my body like the vibration of an overpowering bass line.

There is music in nature, if you listen closely.

Much of my music is inspired by the temperamental yet healing weather roaming throughout my state of Florida. But the penetrating southern weather worked its way into my bones at a much younger age, with my mother sharing memories of Hugo, that colossal surprise hurricane that wreaked havoc on my original home state of South Carolina decades ago just before I was born.

The great country music artists understood Mother Nature, with all of her wild weather and beautiful creations, was the perfect metaphor for life.

There’s the heartbreaking Willie Nelson hit, “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain.” Or those eerie, stick-to-your-skin lyrics from Lefty Frizell’s haunting track, “Long Black Veil,” that cry, “Sometimes as night/ When the cold winds moan/ In a long black veil/ She cries over my bones.”

Eddie Rabbitt brightened things up with his chart-climber, “I Love a Rainy Night.” The story goes, he wrote this song to the rhythm of his wiper blades swishing back and forth as he drove through a rainstorm.

Contemporary country singer-songwriter Gary Allen even has a song about all the country songs about Mother Nature, appropriately titled, “Songs About Rain.”

And who could forget Hank Williams’ great hit, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”—the one where he wails about a “lonesome whippoorwill.”

The nocturnal whippoorwill, with a call that mimics its very name, is as much a staple of the south as it is a staple of classic country music. Aside from Williams’ lonesome ballad, many popular country songs have used the elusive whippoorwill bird as a metaphor for everything from the wandering life of a cowboy to the importance of front porches with the winged southern angels singing in the background. Another modern country artist, Dierks Bentley, references the song of the whippoorwill in an empowering anthem as he tries to escape the troubles of city life and get “high up on the ridge,” a reference to the all-consuming escape of the Appalachian mountains.

Country music has been described as “Three chords and the truth.” Those words have been attributed to the late country music icon, songwriter Harlan Howard. The truth of the matter is, you can learn a lot from the crooners and strummers traipsing through the rain-soaked lands south of the Mason-Dixon line. One thing you can learn by way of country music: there is so much music in nature, if you listen closely, it reminds you of how alive you are because of how alive it is.

This lesson reminds me of the quote by the celebrated detective/crime novelist Agatha Christie, which goes, “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”

So the next time you feel a fit of artistic inspiration welling up in your soul, instead of turning on Youtube or opening Spotify, or even breaking out your trusty old vinyl, step outside. Allow yourself a quiet moment. Tune into the world around you. Listen to the symphony of cicadas, the distant roll of a storm, the waves of rain mimicking an ocean tide. Let the music of nature serenade you and inspire you. Just like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson always understood, Mother Nature has so much to say. She has so much to teach us.  Whether it’s the whistling winds of a record-setting hurricane or the whistling melody of a heat-drenched troubadour in a state of delirium at the Mississippi crossroads, we can find the lessons of nature in the archives of all the music she has made.

And if you’d like to check out some of my own music and writing with Mother Nature as the theme, here are a couple of my picks below. Cheers!

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“Hurricane” is a tune released by my duo, The Crazy Daysies. My sister, Jen, who is 1/2 of The Crazy Daysies, penned the song. We spent an afternoon putting music to it before recording it. What would you do if you had the power of a storm?

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“Weather” is a poem I wrote about exploring fear and taking risks, with the biggest risk of all being a life spent without taking those leaps of faith.

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