CMT Blog: Archive

“I don’t want to be like fish,” my mom said. “After a while they get to stinkin’.”

My mother recently came down visit me from Illinois. She came to celebrate our birthdays together and to catch up on some much-needed girl time. She was worried that her stay of five nights would be too long and that she may wear out her welcome or interrupt my schedule. And for some, having their mother for this period of time would start to stink. Not for me.

We went out for dinner, we went shopping, you know, did most normal mother and daughter activities. But I have to say, my favorite memories of her trip will be our morning conversations over vanilla biscotti coffee as we sat in my little apartment with my kitty, Hank. Though in the middle of a city, I felt like I was back home again. When she left Monday morning and dropped me off at work, we both sadly said our goodbyes. I guess you could simply say the days weren’t long enough.

That morning she left, I began my work week by putting together Steve Earle and wife Allison Moorer’s Unplugged at Studio 330 page on CMT.com. I read about how the two are nominated for a 2008 Grammy for their country collaboration of song, “Days Aren’t Long Enough.” Before watching the performance, I thought to myself, “What a beautiful title.” I hadn’t heard the song before, but when I watched the video, I immediately thought it was an award winner as well as a song I needed to hear at that moment in time. “Days Aren’t Long Enough” was just how I was feeling.

Every time I watch this video, I feel like I’m a fly on the wall watching the couple at their home having some sort of personal and intimate conversation. You can’t fake this kind of raw emotion, and it’s obvious from the first note as they gaze into one another’s eyes. In Earle’s interview following the performance, he talks about how this duet differs with others he’s done in the past because, as he says, “It required no acting whatsoever.”

Though Earle and Moorer are singing of their relationship for one another as man and wife, this song can be perceived on several different levels. That morning I listened and watched this video, it was like a little gift that helped me put how I was feeling into words as well as perspective.

Yes, we all have those special people in our lives we look forward to seeing and spending time with. Whether a mother or father, brother or sister, friend or loved one, time is never quite long enough — no matter how much time we’re given. Like the song says, “Another year has come and gone/Another circle ‘round the sun” — and, I’m sure, more stinky situations for all of us to come. But with those special few (like my mother), “Days are never long enough.”