Living Hard

As evidenced by my ITunes library that recently eclipsed 10,000 songs, I'm clearly a music fanatic. Elvis, Johnny Cash, Cross Canadian Ragweed, whatever... I love most any music. However, it's rare that a CD has me waiting for 6 months in anticipation. It's even more rare that uncommon that when the CD finally arrives, it lives up to my expectations and captures me in such a way that I have a hard time articulating.

Well, yesterday it happened. My favorite artist, Gary Allan, released "Living Hard"--his seventh studio album. And wow, it is amazing. I haven't stopped listening to it since I scurried to the store yesterday morning to purchase it.



The CD packs a very emotional punch, as Gary wrote most of the songs (a rarity these days) as a way to reconcile his very troubled past. A couple of years ago, Gary's wife, Angela, asked him to check on one of the kids, and he said, "I just put them to bed, everyone's fine." Moments later, she said, "Would you go get me a Coke? I feel like I'm sick." Shortly after he walked to the kitchen, Gary heard a loud pop. "It sounded like she had thrown something," he says. "I had a gun safe underneath the bed and she had taken the pistol, stuck it in her mouth and pulled the trigger. She was on the bed. She was gone." Gary would later say that he had absolutely no idea she was depressed.

The CD is chock full of songs that cut to the core of every human emotion that we all feel but are reluctant to air: frustration, helplessness, vices, love, loss, loneliness, recovery, moving on, and everything in between. Each song is an experience unto itself, and the entire CD is incredibly touching.

It's worth noting that Gary Allan is a country musician, typically cast aside of the mainstream because he isn't "pop" enough for the current state of country music. He is an iconic example of commitment to your beliefs, reflection, and self-expression, irrespective of environmental pressures (i.e., pressures to change his sound and image). It's also worth extracting another lesson from this story, which is that inspiration, truth, and beauty can be found in seemingly unlikely places, like the New Releases shelf in Wal-Mart. And it will only run you $12.98.