In 1969 NBC’s evening news ended a Vietnam report the way no one expected They played a record over a shot of an empty bedroom Then they said nothing at all The record was Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town and the man who wrote it Mel Tillis had stuttered every single day of his life
That song began with a real story from 1947 A soldier came home to Palm Beach County Florida in a wheelchair He brought a war bride with him from England one of the nurses who had kept him alive He called her Ruby He drank He accused her of everything under the sun She stayed for years Then she was gone A boy named Mel Tillis lived close enough to see all of it and he never forgot Twenty years later he wrote it down changing only one thing the war He made it that old crazy Asian war
Then came the line Nashville was afraid of A paralyzed man admitting
If I could move I’d get my gun and put her in the ground
Waylon Jennings cut it first in 1966 Johnny Darrell took it to number nine in 1967 But the version the whole world remembers ended with five words Kenny Rogers spoke instead of sang and that is why people still pull the car over
Country radio stopped it at thirty nine Pop radio carried it to number six Britain to number two In 1969 NBC closed a Vietnam report by simply playing the record over a shot of an empty bedroom and then saying nothing at all
Mel Tillis stuttered every day of his life He wrote the plainest sentence in country music and let the rest of the world decide what it meant That is why it still matters