I first heard the song “Where Corn Don’t Grow” by Travis Tritt while driving on UT-14, heading back from Bryce Canyon, past Long Valley Junction, through Duck Creek Village, then on to Cedar City, and finally Las Vegas.
The sun was setting, and I was approaching the 10,000 foot summit of a mountain. The sunset was none like I had ever seen before, there was a crescent moon already out, low in the sky, and two bright stars were above either crescent tip, as if the stars were suspending the moon.
As the sun was setting, the sky wasn’t the usual pinks and purples, rather it was a shade of gray-blue I had never seen before. Fir trees, snow, a winding mountain road, a low, crescent moon, and Travis Tritt on the radio. Doesn’t get much better than that.
The one line of the song that really got me was “Those weeds are high where corn don’t grow.” I interpreted it to mean something, having lived in a place where corn doesn’t grow for most of my life…
