thank god i'm a country boy

how "amie" changed my life

Well life on the farm is kinda laid back, so when I was asked to participate in the wonderful “This Song Changed My Life” newsletter I had to jump at the chance. I had a nice long and hard think. Had one song ever changed my life? Seems like a pretty grand proclamation to make — surely a great thought exercise for a nerd like myself.

My lifelong obsession with popular (and mostly not popular) music has defined the young, thirty six year old geezer I am today. But could I point to one song that incited some sort of sliding door moment? I couldn’t. So I flipped on the nostalgia switch.

If I go rooting around in the depths of my brain — most of my memories are colored with the gray of Marlboro smoke and the New Jersey Turnpike. If you want to climb inside my memories for a second, you can get the gist by watching The Sopranos opening credits. This is not me projecting.

You wouldn’t know it — but from ages six to about seventeen — I played at the highest level of competitive travel hockey the State of New Jersey would allow. This is to say that I was pretty good. I spent every weekend on the road with my dad, usually on the 12-lane asphalt monster that is the New Jersey Turnpike (easily the most fascinating road in America), a printed out packet of directions to rinks in one hand, and the turnpike ticket in the other. I held that fucker tight. I was told that if you were unable to present the ticket, along with the correct amount of money to the toll booth operator, you were charged for the sum of each toll fee. The prospect of that shook me to my core.

Long story short, I listened to a lot of music on those drives — and I wrote a little something about one song that sticks out amidst the washing machine churn of my memory.

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I spent most weekends of my youth driving up and down the New Jersey Turnpike with my Dad.

Early morning before the sun made its grand entrance over the east. Sitting bleary eyed in the passenger seat holding a stapled packet full of directions, the turnpike ticket, and a few dollar bills for the toll booth collector at the end of the line. Fighting for my life to stay awake amidst a cloud of Marlboro smoke.

Why we were in the car for all those years doesn’t matter. But every weekend we found ourselves together in the 1996 Dodge Durango, en route, usually in the quiet morning hours, right in the middle of winter.

Conversation never flowed freely. Nothing memorable or profound. No grand proclamations about life and how it should be lived. No “when I was your age” stories. Just stillness at 75 miles per hour with the radio on.

I still remember the words to every song that was on rock radio in the Tri-State area from 1995-2001. I probably haven’t heard “Cumbersome” by Seven Mary Three in ten years, but it would bet my life that I still know every word. And this isn’t about Everclear or Stone Temple Pilots, though it easily could be.

It’s about “Amie” by Pure Prairie League — a song that sounds just as hokey to me now as it did twenty-five years ago. I never considered country music until hearing my Dad sing along with this song rolling through suburban metropolis. Why would he know these words? To a country song? What the fuck? Who is this motherfucker?

Let’s back the Durango up a bit here. To a young kid in New Jersey in the 1990s, there was nothing more deeply uncool than country music. Not even close. Hearing “Amie” for the first time unlocked something for me. Mid-70s hook-heavy, southern-tinged rock. Cocaine country.

As I grew up and my tastes (maybe) evolved, my addiction to cocaine country like “Amie” hasn’t released its grip. Maybe it’s the hoe-down riffage, or that southern boy harmonizing. Hard to say. I still wish every country song could sound like this — and I’m on an eternal quest to find one that does.

“Amie” has always seemed aspirational. Lovelorn. That hairpin moment right before you fall off the cliff into the deep waters of love. Filled to the brim with emotion. Headed in one direction and one direction only. 

I think I could stay with you
For a while, maybe longer if I do

In reality, it’s a song about love on the rocks. A couple desperately in love, but pushed to the brink once again. It’s about hardship. Life’s ups and downs and how the grip of love digs its claws in. It’s the story of everyone. It’s a song for everyone. 

Pure Prairie League never had another hit. If you ask me, they didn’t need one. 

You can still find me, at least once a month, driving around with Spotify tuned to “Amie,” welling up to the yearning of the chorus. Air guitaring the giddy-up solo. Straining to hit the vocal key change and doing my best southern boy scorned impression.

I am right back riding shotgun, fading into the gray smokestacks along the turnpike, harmonizing with my dad to fill the time between nothing much to say.