Gene Watson "Flowers" (2003)

Album: Sings
Label: Compendia Records


The past couple decades have seen a spate of alcohol-recovery songs from aging country men-T. Graham Brown, Gene Watson's labelmate for a time on indie-label-for-supposed-has-beens Intersound, did some real good ones for instance. But it's doubtful many were as effective as “Flowers,” sung the year Watson turned 60.

He addresses it to his wife who-we learn as the song progresses-turns out to have died a year before, in a car that the narrator was driving, after she had begged him on her knees not to. He swears he's been sober since, and of course it's totally maudlin, but Watson's delivery is gorgeously understated, and he nails it.

At one point, to illustrate how much he's changed since that tragic day, he mentions a new suit for Sunday he just bought. And how his relaxed tenor rejoices in that high exultant note on “I'm in church now” gives you shivers and breaks your heart "It's hard not to believe that, beyond the plot's hyperbole, Watson hears something of his own life in this story.

The song appeared on a CD called ...Sings "one of 11 consecutive albums on six different labels" (1992 to 2009) listed on Watson's Wiki discography that did not chart at all.

Between 1975 and 1997, though, he had charted over 75 songs "including six number ones. Subtle ballads, mostly "some of which may, or may not, be as mind-blowing as this one.