Day 15: a month of Amy-isms, UT, part 2 20, 15, 10 and 5, youre the reason Im alive, John Ward Amy and I started dating in 1998 and that fall we went to every UT football home game. Amy had season tickets since she graduated in 1988, and she had rarely missed a home game in those ten years, but 1998 was my first season going to every game. UT went undefeated and won the national championship that year, so it was a great year to drive to Knoxville every other weekend. Besides being the national championship year, 1998 was also John Wards last season as UTs radio announcer. During halftime of the Kentucky game, the last home game of 1998, Kenny Chesney sang a tribute song he had written for John Ward called Touchdown Tennessee. If youve never heard the song Ive put a link to a YouTube of the song below. There was not a dry eye in the stadium after Kenny sang the song from mid-field that day. On the drive home we were trying to remember the lyrics to the chorus and the only thing I could (mis)remember was 20, 15, 10 and 5, youre the reason Im alive, John Ward. When I sang those lines, Amy said there is no way he said youre the reason Im alive John Ward. This was a few years before you settle lyrical disputes with Google, and the song was hard to find until Napster. So for years when UT would score on a run from outside the red zone one of us would sing 20, 15, 10 and 5, youre the reason Im alive John Ward. After we found the song on Napster we learned that the actual line was 20, 15, 10 and 5, your voice was our eyes .... After we confirmed that we had the lyrics wrong and had made the song even smaltzier than it originally was, this line became kind of a goofy term of endearment. From time to time when I would do something nice for Amy she would sing with full-on Kenny Chesney cheesiness: 20, 15, 10 and 5, youre the reason Im alive, John Ward. https://youtube/watch?v=61DnOsJd1Jc
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:55:26 +0000