I am not a big country music fan, definitely when it comes to anything after oh, say, 1994. But there is one song that stands out, a timeless classic sung by David Allen Coe: “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.” At the end of the song, Coe mentions that it was written by a friend, Steve Goodman, and was sent to him as an example of the perfect country-western song. Coe wrote back that it was not, since it contained no references to momma, trains, prison, rain, or getting drunk. Goodman then added the final verse:
I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got runned over by a damned ol’ train
With that in mind – well, that and the fact that it is getting close to the end of the year and I’m tired – I decided to write the Perfect News Story for 2022. And it goes something like this. Read more…
