Good Old Nashville Days

This week's episode features one true-story song and two tall tales—you can decide which one stretches the truth the most.

The true story, "Nashville Summer Evenings," recalls my childhood in postwar Nashville. My parents, both World War II veterans, made sure my sister and I never forgot our Tennessee farming roots. Weekend trips to visit our grandparents, listening to the Grand Ole Opry on WSM, and exploring an abandoned railroad bed behind our house became memories that inspired the song years later.

The first tall tale, "Dottie's Come Back Home," grew out of my Baptist upbringing. Because we were always in church, I missed many classic TV shows—including The Wizard of Oz. When I finally saw it in college, I interpreted it as an unlikely allegory for the 1960s counterculture and turned that idea into a calypso song.

The final song, "UFO at the VBS," imagines a 1950s Vacation Bible School interrupted by visitors from another world. Inspired by a sermon about how churches might respond to the discovery of extraterrestrial life, it's a humorous reminder that sometimes the most unbelievable stories ask the biggest questions.

© 2026 David Ray Skinner/Electric Quilt Music, BMI

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Noted Stories, True and Tall Tales Set to Music. Thank you for joining us on this journey. I'm your host, David Ray Skinner. Every week we're gonna feature a couple of stories that are musical trips down someone's memory lane, mostly mine, since I've been writing story songs for over 50 years. And that's because I was born in Nashville, Music City, USA, back in the 1950s. You know, back then the legend was that they handed a tiny little guitar to every newborn Nashville right there in the delivery room and expected them to become a musician. Now, that was probably the first of many a tall tale and family story I was told. So it seemed only fitting that I started writing music notes and melodies to these stories. Actually, I started writing songs when I was eight years old, so as you can imagine, I have quite a collection, and rather than let them sit buried on a shelf in dusty old music notebooks, I decided to launch this podcast to share them and the stories behind the stories. I put together some musicians of all types to help me bring these stories to life and to song. The past couple of episodes of Noted Stories have featured some of my true story songs. If you missed them, the first week featured my song about Robin Lee Graham, who, as a 16-year-old in 1966, sailed solo around the world. It was an epic voyage that took him three and a half years. My other song was about a man I met in East Tennessee who had worked on the atomic bomb at Oak Ridge, and exactly what that cost him. The second week included a couple of songs about events that I had experienced on my wild and crazy trip to San Francisco in the summer of 1975. These included my firsthand account of the attempted assassination of then President Gerald Ford and the song I wrote about Patty Hearst's capture by the FBI and an invitation to Jim Jones People's Temple and the Jonestown aftermath. In the intro, I'd promise true story songs and tall tale songs, so for this week's edition, I thought it only right to sort of mix it up a little. We've got a true story song and a couple of tall tale songs. You can be the judge of which is the tallest. The first song is a true story and it takes us back to my childhood in Nashville. My parents had both been involved in World War II. My mom was a Rosie the Riveter in Detroit, which was a long way from Tennessee, and my dad was a tail gunner on a B-24 as part of the famous Jolly Rogers bomb group in the South Pacific, which is an even longer way from Tennessee. They were both from farming communities northwest of Nashville on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. But they didn't meet and marry until after the war. Then they moved to Nashville, where my dad took a job at a printing company. When I was two, we moved to Donaldson, one of Nashville's brand new post-war suburbs. The kind of community that was springing up all over the country. Affordable and comfortable housing for the returning war-weary vests. I do think that my parents wanted my sister Jan and I to grow up with our roots in the Tennessee farming country that they had experienced in their childhood, only without the grim realities of the Great Depression, which they had both navigated with their families by farming and growing their own food. They tried to teach us the distinct difference between the groceries off the shelf in our suburban supermarket and the hand-picked vegetables out of our grandparents' gardens, both in taste and in access. Often, when Friday afternoon would roll around, my father would get home from the hot, unair-conditioned downtown Nashville printing shop, and we'd pack into the car and head up to my grandparents' homes. My dad's folks lived in Clarksville, the home of Fort Campbell's 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles, which incidentally was located on part of what had been my grandparents' farm. My mom's folks lived on down the road in Dover, a sleepy little town on the Cumberland and the site of Fort Donaldson. No relation to our suburb, but it was where Ulysses S. Grant's first major victory in the Civil War happened. My Uncle Ray, who I'm named after, was the postmaster and later mayor of Dover. Back in the days before the interstates, it seemed like a long journey down there and back. Especially in an unair-conditioned 1956 two-door Chevrolet Bel Air. My dad had grown up listening to the Saturday Night Grand Old Opera, and when we drive back to Nashville on those Saturday nights, we'd tune the old Chevy's AM radio to Clear Channel WSM 650 and let that station be our GPS. The closer we got to Nashville, rolling down old Highway 41A, the louder Roy Acuff's voice became. Then, after church on Sundays, my sister Jan, my dog Tippy, and I would explore the woods behind our house. The woods were threaded by what we called the railroad bed. Years before, it had been a commuter line on the Tennessee Central Railroad, but the tracks were removed back in the 1930s, leaving us a valley with deep double grooves and hills on either side. It was perfect for building forts and secret hideouts. In 1974, just out of college, I began realizing how much those old days meant. And this song came out of that. It's called Nashville Summer Evenings.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Until we would be leaving taking daddy's old guitar.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

You may have heard the expression, we were there every time the church doors open. Well, that expression was reality in my young life. That meant Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Wednesday evenings for a prayer meeting, and every day if it was vacation Bible school, and every night if it was a revival. Now, don't get me wrong, I love that church and my church family, and I loved going to church. That's where I learned to sing and harmonize from the time I was four or five years old. And I didn't mind Sunday night services, nor Wednesday services. In fact, I loved Wednesday nights because there was always a covered dish supper and the women of our church did know how to cook. But here's the thing. Sunday nights were prime time for television shows. Even though our television set was a 1952 Motorola black and white TV with a 14-inch screen, it was still the highlight of entertainment for my young life. Sunday nights featured Lassie, Bonanza, and Ed Sullivan. And I took missing them in stride. I hate to admit this, but sometimes when I saw that a week's Lassie episode was going to be really exciting, like when Timmy fell down at the well, I would tell my parents that I had a stomachache so I could stay home. Unfortunately, years later, that old Baptist guilt is still with me. Every time I see a collie, it gets sick to my stomach. But the big trauma for me, however, was when the Walt Disney show, which initially aired on Friday nights on ABC, switched to NBC and full color in September of 1961. I mean, I was devastated. I knew Adam and Hoss and Little Joe would be alright without me as a viewer. I mean, they were, you know, tough cowboys, but as a first and second grade cartoonist, I idolized Walt Disney. In fact, I sat down and wrote a letter begging the Disney company to reconsider. I actually sent it to Walt himself. I said something like, Dear Mr. Disney, hundreds of little Baptist children will not be able to see your shows unless you go back to Friday nights. I did get a postcard from a Disney employee in return saying, quote, It was a network decision, and be sure to see our next feature film coming to a theater near you. Yeah, well that was disappointing, but it was nothing compared to not being able to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan on that epic Sunday night. But that's another story for another time and another song. The big show I missed every year was The Wizard of Oz. Oh sure. I heard all about Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Great Oz, but I never got to see the movie until I was in college. And by then it was the early 70s, and I interpreted the movie totally differently than most of my friends who had grown up watching it. To them it was ho-hum. To me, it was fascinating. I saw it as an allegory of the counterculture. Yes, I know the movie was filmed in 1939, decades before the Summer of Love, but I just figured that maybe there was some old time machine laying around a closet somewhere in Oz. I thought the Land of Oz was most likely a metaphor for California. After all, the lion looked a lot like David Crosby. Of course, my friends thought I was crazy, but I decided to double down on my suspicions. After viewing it again sometime in the 80s when I lived in New York, I wrote this song about it. And to make the tale even taller or weirder, I set it to a calypso beat. So here it is. It's called Dottie's Come Back Home.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Oh, she is back in Kansas now. She called me on the telephone. If she's changed, I can't say how. But she's been so long. But it's come back. Oh, she is back in Kansas now. She called me on the telephone. If she's changed, I can't say how. But it's been so long. All the time keeps moving on. But it's come down. When she hit the road, the storm was dreaming. She must have thought that she was dreamin'. Oh darling, it is still not clean. I don't wanna hear me a little bit. I'm on a hearing. Oh, she is back in Kansas now. She called me on the telephone. If she's changed, I can't say how. But she it's been so long. Oh time keeps moving on. But it's come back home. What's it like in California? Did you wear flowers in your hair? Didn't anyone inform ya? That back here we were on the brink. Daddy, did you really think that no one cared? Did you think that no one cared? Oh, she is back in Kansas now. She called me on the telephone. If she's changed, I can't say how. But she it's been so long. Oh, time keeps moving on. Daddy's come back home. I saw the pictures of the place that you were sharing. Your friend with all the hair look very weird. What kind of tin hat was his pal wear? And you can skip all the tales of getting high. Dolly, I don't think that I really wanna hear. I don't think I wanna hear. Oh, she is back in Kansas now. She called me on the telephone. If she's changed, I can't say how. But it's been so long. Over time keeps moving on. Daddy's come back home. Oh yes, she's come back home. Daddy's come back home.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So today we're talking about UFOs. I've long been a fan of writing story songs about UFOs, some of which I'll be sharing in subsequent episodes. But this week I'm featuring a new song that I've just written. I wrote it for a reason other than just being silly. A few months ago, I heard a minister mention the fact that we are living in a time when we are seeing things that we never thought possible. And he happened to say, if the government suddenly mentioned that there is life on other planets and we have made contact with them, how do you think churches would respond? Now he went on to say, there are probably church members that would leave the church forever because they couldn't find anything about flying saucers in their Bible. At least not listed in that way. So, that's where this song comes in. As I mentioned, going back to my days of growing up in suburban Nashville, we never missed BBS Vacation Bible School. So this song is set back in the 1950s when we kids had recreation time out on the lawn by our old church. The grown-ups would all go inside for cake and coffee, leaving us kids to our own methods of recreation. Now, in my song, that includes the visitation of some friends from another universe, an event that is not believed by our teacher or pastor of the church. In fact, in my song, our teacher, Mrs. Dean, a name I just made up, all but accuses us of lying, and she makes us memorize Luke 8.17, which ironically states, For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Now, poor Mrs. Dean missed the irony. Understand, I'm projecting this. Maybe our pastor, who has long since passed away, would have believed us, but we'll never know. In the meantime, here's my song, UFO at the BBS.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

I love vacation Bible school and the glee that it would bring. It's where we learn the golden rule in John 3:16. But then there was that special year during playtime on the lawn. We saw them suddenly beer and quickly they were gone. And the growth stay were all inside, the preacher and the rest. So they didn't see us take better ride on the UFO, the VBS. They said the arc could be our guest on the UFO, the V BS We told our teacher, Mrs. Dean, but it just made it worse. She quoted to the case 17 instead, go learn that verse. But then that day in crafts and arts, all us children chose. Instead of drawing, no the dark, to all draw UFOs. And the bronze, they were all inside, the preacher and the rest. So they didn't see us. Take that ride on the UFO on the VBS. On the US well, the V Vars Kids have kept in. I mean the ones declined aboard that. They didn't know what happened on the lawn that day at BBS. Then mom said, Where's your Bible, son? He said you left it where. I said my new friends needed one, and Mrs. Dean taught us to share. And the broadcuts they were all it's time for Preacher and the Red. So baby doesn't have rhyme on the UNBS done with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

For more information about Noted Stories, you can check out our website, notedstories.com or DavidRayskinner.com. We'll see you next week when hopefully we'll be back on Earth and in the American South. So, y'all, as we say here down south when we're sitting down for supper or leaving after dinner,