Crystal Gayle - All-Time Greatest Hits

Tell me no secrets, tell me some lies
Give me no reasons, give me alibis
Tell me you love me and don't let me cry
Say anything but don't say goodbye

Sometimes you gotta get back to your roots. Growing up as I did, listening to my parents' music, I was, shall we say, quite dissatisfied with a lot of it. But not all. I pretty much bailed out of "country" music when the 80s rolled around, mostly because it wasn't country anymore. But many of the singers from my childhood still have their places in my collection.

Crystal Gayle is one of those. All-Time Greatest Hits is a compilation from 1990, but the newest song on here is from 1979. In that year I turned 15, and about that time I would have considered her not only one of my favorite singers, but also extremely hot. I had at least one of her cassettes back then, but it wore out a long time ago. I picked this one up from a clearance bin several years ago.

It's the kind of music that reminds me of hot summer nights, eating watermelon and homemade ice cream on the front porch with an assortment of cousins, aunts and uncles; lying in the dark with my radio on, the volume down low so no one else could hear it, lost in my own private world, and drifting off to sleep with her voice in my head. I had a friend who really liked her too, and her music always reminds me of him, and of us asking each other at school: Hey, have you heard the new Crystal Gayle song yet?