Mood:
lyricalTopic: "Second of Two" (4)
Bilbo will cry a little this evening, because a mellow baritone who could mix a little country, a little folk, and a little rock will no longer add to the more than 145 songs which entertained parts of three generations. For this reason, Frodo will break precedent and briefly eulogize the "Tennessee Plowboy," as the second of what must surely be three who pass in succession. Eddy Arnold died today, just days short of his 90th birthday, and only two months after his wife of 66 years.
Frodo, during the loneliest time in his life, saw Eddy Arnold in concert, and every song seemed to reach out and speak to his aching heart. Frodo truly wanted to make the world go away, and to have all of its' burdens removed from his shoulders. Frodo wanted so desperately to know what someone else was doing in his world. Frodo could stare into the empty night sky and actually hear the lonesome cattle call.
The depths of Frodo's depression were answered by the mournful reminders that suffering is something known to all. Music is not just a celebration of good times, rather it is a chronicle of the joys and the sadness which are a part of the times we know. As clearly as Eddy Arnold could define Frodo's lament, he must have pulled the very heartstrings of people of Bilbo's time, of whom there are now so few.
The genius of Chet Atkins produced the application of strings to the whippoorwill voice of Eddy Arnold, giving solace to every lover who has ever pined alone. It is difficult for Frodo to accept that one who has always been there, will no longer be. It is, he knows, the art that lives on, that speaks to those who remember, and to those trying to forget.
