Moments in Music: Willie Nelson “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”

Every time I started to write the highly-anticipated third and final installment in my Clean Guide to Camping at Coachella, I kept finding myself over-explaining why music matters to me. And then in the past few months as I’ve moved and changed jobs, I kept coming back to this—telling and retelling the stories where music has affected me. So it’s necessary for me to paint a larger picture before I get to Coachella (but trust me, I will get there).

My parents are not musicians, yet they raised two. They are lovers of music and I strongly believe their passion for music supported and encouraged my sister and I to pursue music as young children.

My parents run our family’s restaurant. Vacations weren’t really a thing that we did. I remember various trips up into the mountains in our home state of Colorado. I remember going to Texas to visit family. New Mexico for a cousin’s high school graduation. Chicago to visit family. My mom and sister went to Chicago for a funeral. Dad and I didn’t. There was that one time we went to Las Vegas that had nothing to do with family. And then the time my parents and I went to California, Oregon, and Washington to look at colleges within the span of a three-day weekend. My dad and I went back to Oregon another weekend for a scholarship competition at the school I would later attend. And I guess maybe you can count when we flew back to Oregon and my parents left me there because it was the place I was going to live for the next several years. But most of those things I don’t really consider to be vacations.

We weren’t the type to go on cruises or go to Disneyland. We didn’t have some annual Hawaii trip. No resorts. No fancy virgin-daiquiris on a beach. I’d never even seen the ocean until I was in college. To this day I’ve never left the country. Normally when I tell people that they ask if I’ve been to Mexico or Canada. Yes, I am aware of the difference between continent and country. I did pass Geography. Traveling just wasn’t a thing we had the time or money to do.

But we went to concerts.

We went to Eric Clapton (twice), Earth, Wind & Fire—three times if you count the time they couldn’t perform and rescheduled the show or the time my parents and sister went without me which was a super bummer because it was Earth, Wind & Fire AND Chicago—Prince, and Brian Setzer Orchestra at Christmas time—which is the best time to see BSO. My mother took me to my very first music festival: Lilith Fair. My father took my sister to Santana that same year. Last fall my family went to see Foster the People without me which was totally fine because I saw them at Coachella.

Because of my family, I budget for concerts. It’s why I built my own Coachella one year and why I actually went to Coachella last year. It’s why I once spent $400 on two tickets to a sold-out Radiohead concert. It’s why I saw Tegan and Sara three times in the same year. It’s why I saw Fiona Apple twice on the same tour. It’s why I drove to Colorado to see The Faint with two of my closest friends.

And to be perfectly honest, I’d rather have these moments than vacations.

We saw Prince in 2004. The Musicology tour. There was no opening act. Just Prince. He played for three hours: one-hour medley of Prince with full ensemble, one-hour Prince solo acoustic set, one-hour medley with full band to close it out. Prince doesn’t do a lot of the public speaking. He might talk a little here and there over the music, but it’s a real feat of musical stamina.

On his most recent tour, tickets were in the neighborhood of $275 each. While I am confident in saying the ticket price is justified by the quality of performance, I will probably never be able to see Prince again. My parents taking our family of four to see Prince is worth more to me than any trip to Disneyland.

Music is beyond my family though. I remember critical moments in my development as a person through music.

I think I was nine or ten when I left a letter professing my love for my friend H. I put the letter in his baritone case so he’d find it before band.

I didn’t know I was a lesbian yet. I liked H a lot as a friend and I didn’t really know that the way I felt wasn’t the same as the crushes my friends were developing on members of the opposite sex. I needed a crush to fit in. To this day, he and I haven’t really talked about this moment. Not that there’s anything much to talk about other than to say thank you. Professing my love for H kept me safe for a few years. Safe until I was ready. Whether he knew it or not, he kept me safe.

I met my first girlfriend through music. Had my first kiss through music. I’ve loved, lost, and healed through music.

While I don’t remember the exact song, I know the album I was listening to moments before I walked out of my bedroom and into the kitchen the Christmas Eve when I came out to my parents.

So I’ve decided to weave together a series of moments in music without sharing all of these stories at once. Because I could fill volumes with these moments.

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Moments in Music: Willie Nelson “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain”

I remember the last conversation with my grandfather as though it just ended.

My parents never call me. I typically initiate our conversations.

I was a junior in college. I was leading a group of incoming students in a community service project as part of their orientation week. My phone rang and I thought it may have been our shuttle driver calling to ask what time we needed to be picked up.

MomDad Cell.

My parents shared a cellphone. It was for emergencies only. Not our emergencies, though, because they never had it on unless they needed to call someone. Their emergencies.

This was an emergency.

I answered the phone and started walking away from the group. It was my mother. “Papa isn’t doing well, but today is a good day. You should call him.” No deeper explanation of what was happening.

I looked back at the students painting the house and stepped out into the field of weeds as high as my shoulders. I called my grandfather and it was like any other conversation we’d ever had.

How’s your Jeep? What’s the mileage? You didn’t take it to Oregon? You flew? Oh.

But then it was different.

I asked how he was. I asked if I needed to come home.

He said no. Don’t come home. No reason to do that. And then he told me he loved me. I said, “I love you too, Papa.” And then I sunk deeper into the weeds and cried until I barely had the energy to stand.

I remember the sound of my father’s voice as he cried through the phone when he told me Papa was dead. I’ve never seen my father cry like that. But I heard it.

On the flight home from Portland, I didn’t listen to music. I typically prefer the aisle seat because I always have to get up to pee during a flight anywhere, but I was fine with the window seat this time. I thought about flying to Texas when I was little. The most memorable part of the whole trip was the flight there. Aside from the belligerently drunk woman in the back of the plane who had to be restrained with four extra seat belts, my most vivid memory is the image of the clouds through the small oval-shaped window.  We were surrounded by the most beautiful shades of orange and pink. I asked my mother if that was heaven. We’re not religious and I don’t remember her response. But in this moment, I stared out the window at the space above the clouds. And like a crazy person, I spoke to the window. I spoke to my grandfather.

I told him everything I wanted him to know, hoping he was listening, until I realized how idiotic it was. Not only because I don’t believe in heaven, but there I was, sitting in an airplane, speaking quietly under the engine noise so a man who only wore his hearing aids when he was watching TV could hear me. Yeah. I would have had to yell as loud as my vocal cords would allow in that fifteen-seat shoebox with wings, “I know you probably already know, but it’s important for me to tell you myself. I am a lesbian. No. Lesbian. LESbian. I like women! L-E-S-B—Jesus Fucking Christ, forget it.”

I’m pretty sure the people around me thought I was completely insane. One second I was crying, then laughing, then laughing and crying at the same time. I’m lucky the flight crew didn’t restrain me with four seat belts.

The first time I couldn’t keep it together around my family happened before we even left for the funeral. I showed my sister the 1922 Liberty Dollar I had in my pocket. A piece of him I carried with me that day. We were sitting on the couches in the living room. Dressed and ready to go. My now brother-in-law sitting by her side. I pulled the coin out of my pocket and then I couldn’t make words. She moved to sit next to me and we cried together until everyone was ready to leave.

I stood next to my sister and parents in the receiving line in the front lobby of the church as people entered for his memorial service. My mother mentioned something to us about the music she had selected. Something about how it wasn’t religious. No hymns. But still appropriate to be played in the church.

In the twilight glow, I see her…

I felt the smile form in the corner of my mouth as soon as I heard the unmistakable crooning of Willie Nelson through the speakers in the Catholic church. And then I felt my sister squeeze my hand and she was done for the rest of the service. Aside from the moment in the living room, we had done a really good job of keeping it together up until that moment.

Thankfully, the song is short and I was able to regain my composure. But the playlist wasn’t very long.

Everyone was seated and it was time for us to walk to the front of the church. First my grandmother. My mom’s older sister and her family. Then my parents. Then Leslie and I.

Love is like a dyin’ ember. Only memories remain. 

This fucking song. Seriously, Mom. I felt as though I were fully supporting my sister under the weight of her sobs as we slowly lumbered forward to our seats at the front of the congregation. I couldn’t look at anyone.

Through the ages I’ll remember blue eyes cryin’ in the rain.

For the entire service, I held my sister’s hand while she cried. My other hand held the coin in my pocket. I counted the organ pipes, bricks, segments of stained glass. Anything I could do to avoid looking at the people speaking.

Someday when we meet up yonder, we’ll stroll hand in hand again…

There are moments now, several years later where I’m able to keep it together when I hear “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain”. But there’s also this quiet reverence when we’re together as a family. New meaning. A song I’d heard many times before that carries new weight and significance.

… in a land that knows no partin’, blue eyes cryin’ in the rain.