Listening to an old familiar tune on a country music radio station with the repetitive verse “Write This Down” will continue to be played on countless playlists across the country. It speaks to so many of all ages and it speaks to anyone who has lived life fully. It doesn’t matter if the original recording was written to ensure that the person who ended up with a broken heart gets the message across to the person who inflicted the damage.
This song was one of the first songs I heard after moving to Meeker so many years ago. I remember the radio station in Craig playing it throughout the day. It was the only radio station. This song stays true to its original intention, as the turmoil generated when relationships with family and friends are strained makes one feel as if a loved one isn’t listening. It is appropriate for these times as well. Every experience needs to be recognized, and every feeling accepted. More people have written their feelings down in the last few years, and most of these words have been uttered in short bursts of speech available for anyone to read on social media. The writers among us make still maintain the habit of using a writing implement to jot down our feelings. Younger children start with writing diaries or journals, or doodles or drawings containing a sentence of explanation (with the littlest ones their caregivers or teachers write anything spoken down as they say it). Yet, technology is able to offer assistance by keeping track of all the writing of the most mobile among us who continue to depend on scraps of paper, napkins, paper towels or backs of envelopes. To-do lists of every type and style help as well.
The original songwriter who penned this tune didn’t realize how many people would relate to the need for the important meaning behind that command.
If we take the words that others say to us and just jot down a few salient points to recall later, mulling them over again and again without any hint of context, it becomes easy to misinterpret and make assumptions about what was conveyed by the volume and tone, as well. Each time a song is recorded by a popular artist, the listener may take the words as a serious message. While that reminder was almost one-in-the-same in my family of newspapermen, only one small word was changed — this was changed to it. That family credo was never forgotten as the habit of documenting one’s feelings about life’s events became a habit for each generation. “Write it down” applied to both happy and sad events. It couldn’t have been a better family credo.
By Dolly Viscardi
