I've been told by several experts in the music industry that story songs aren't hot right now. I have to ask myself, as country music is concerned, whatever happened to the story song? Willie Nelson came down to Texas from Nashville, Tennessee. He recorded a concept album called Redheaded Stranger. They told him that you can't do concept albums anymore. It's sure to flop. He proved that industry expert's “expert” advice is nothing more than a load of garbage. What if someone told Robert Earl Keen that story songs were out this season when he wrote The Road Goes on Forever? If that song came out today tell me in what alternate dimension would that song crash and burn? If Red Headed Stranger came out today would it be a flop? I think that the sensibility of Country/Americana music, and especially Texas/Red Dirt music is that it's always ready for the next great story song, regardless of what's trending. It's a universal truth. “Down in the West Texas town of El Paso I fell in love with a Mexican girl” is a timeless opening line that are burned into every Texan, and country music fan's brain. Why is that you ask? Because songs like El Paso are a four-minute movie that our brains can paint. It's storytelling and the key to our own imagination. With that I say that a great story song will NEVER go out of style. Country music is always waiting for the next great one to come around the corner. The only thing that has gone out of style on the commercial side of music is writing a great story song. I know several great artists that are still writing great story songs. Nashville may not want to hear it, but when did Nashville start to matter here in the great republic of Texas? You do you and we'll do whatever the hell we please, or in the iconic words of Davy Crockett, “you can all go to hell, I'm going to write a great story song", or something to that effect. Carry on…