Tracie P and I splurged on Friday night and treated ourselves to seventh row seats at the Merle Haggard show at the (bring your own booze ’cause they ain’t got none) River Bend Auditorium (and erstwhile church) in Austin.

We first saw him together in 2009 and the show brought back lots of memories of when I first moved to Austin and our hearts were brimming with dreams of building a financial future for ourselves and having a family (Friday was the first time we had a sitter!).

It was great to hear Merle play the hits and tell the stories again… But the song that moved me the most wasn’t one of his. It was Willie Nelson’s “Back to Earth.”

I found the clip below from a Ryman Auditorium (I don’t need to tell you where that is) performance from 2008.

It’s really a song about love lost… But it’s also about enduring, true love… It’s been nearly four years since I first came to Austin from California and I know that our song will never have a final verse… I wouldn’t trade these last four years of my life for anything in the world.

Songs our love created I still sing
Love we knew still makes the rafters ring
Tonight I’ll sing for everything I’m worth
For all the hearts that have settled back to earth

Our song will never have a final verse
Our hearts just finally settled back to earth