Vince Gill Just Look At Us

Now and then there are songs, if one listens to country classic stations, that speak to things we have felt, but have not been able to speak.

Country music has long been a source of soulful tunes and ballads. Nashville produces plenty of forgettable stuff, of course, but it also manages to produce songs of note.

Country artists who get big and stay big have to have something besides promotional machines to get them there and keep them there. Somewhere along the line there is a lucky combination of songwriter, arranger, and artist that gets everything right. Sometimes this magic happens only once at the ultimate level, sometimes over and over

One requirement is a particular quality of voice. Vince Gill has a plaintive, mournful, humble voice that makes people consider what he has to sing. So he is magical teamed up with other similar artists like Ricky Skaggs or Allison Krauss exploring the bluegrass harmonies and keys or humbling us with ballads. He invites us to see what he has known.

He has a sincerity, a focus that captures attention. I’m not sure I can explain where this comes from, but a look of modesty helps. He doesn’t live for the big splash but for the effect on listeners. There’s a down-home smile and other body language hints that make him easier to like, but something comes through even if you’ve never seen an image or a stage performance. He’s telling a story he believes.

In this video to accompany the song, we are offered hope that we might find it, that we might make it that far, if we keep doing our best. The same body language hints show in the couples featured in the video. They hold hands. They look at each other. We see their photos from the 1950s and 1960s. Then again we hear “just look at us.” I can’t help but feel the lump in my throat and the start of watery eyes.

The composer, arranger, and musicians make all the difference, but often get little credit for their efforts. Gill co-wrote this song with Max D. Barnes. John Hughey plays the pedal steel guitar intro. It all fits in a way that is somehow magical. I don’t understand quite how.

I looked further into the song’s history and discovered a sad truth. We must keep trying to make it right and must give it our best effort every day. The video features Gill’s first wife Janis Oliver. The video came out in 1991. Gill and his wife divorced in 1997. Now things are better, we hear. If you’ve been through that, you feel the ache and remember the sorrows and remember the joys, too. We can regret the pain we caused. If we’re lucky, we can still have the hope, we can still believe in forever, even if it’s something we don’t really understand. Just look at us . . . now.