Douglas Alexander: “I wish to talk about songwriters. Italy has its art, and California and Oregon have fine wine, Hollywood has movies…”

“I wish to talk about songwriters. Italy has its art, and California and Oregon have fine wine, Hollywood has movies, Dalton, GA, has carpets, and Nashville has songwriters. There are a great many beautiful songs that come from Nashville-- poems--but I want to especially commend to my colleagues a new song called ``Letters from Home.'' You may hear John Michael Montgomery sing it. It is a poem that touches the heart of Americans at this time. It is especially meaningful with the men and women of our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and all over the world fighting for freedom. This is a story about their loved ones awaiting their coming home. The last stanza goes like this: I hold it up and show my buddies Like we ain't scared an' our boots ain't muddy But no one laughs 'cause there's Ain't nothin' funny when a' Soldier cries. So I just wipe my eyes Fold it up and put it in my shirt Pick up my gun and get back to work And it keeps drivin' on, waitin' on letters from home. That song was written by Tony Lane and David Lee. I saw them a couple weeks ago at Belmont University in Nashville. Belmont celebrated the introduction of a course on ``Poetics in Country Music,'' to explore literary criticism of song lyrics as we do for other poetry. I salute Belmont University for its leadership.”