"Big Time"

5 August 2017:
"I play guitar and I sing my songs in the sunshine.
Captain and Cokes and barroom jokes keep me feeling fine.
And there's always a stage and a beautiful babe to squeeze my lime.
In my simple way, guess you can say I'm living in the big time." --Big & Rich, "Big Time"

I loved this song when it came out back in 2005. Especially that summer after I finished my dissertation, I spent a lot of time driving around listening to it. That was a strange time for me--finishing up graduate school, being on the job market, and realizing that my life was about to change. And I didn't have all that much control over what (or, more accurately where) would come next.

I remember finding a kind of fun comfort in "Big Time," especially its chorus, which just happily asserts that things will be okay and that living in the "big time" is relative. They are singing about their music careers, of course, but the parallel seemed clear to me. I Because even then--when I was dreading being on my own again in new place and having to start all over again, when so many of my friends and peers had different kinds of lives at that point--I kind of always knew that I was okay not having lots of money or having a life that looked more traditional. If I could get a job--a big if, because the job market was and is terrible---I would always be okay because I would be doing what I loved.

Anyway, I don't think I had listened to this song in years before tonight, as I played it while driving home from a fundraiser for a local theater. I had just spent a few hours hanging out with friends and meeting some great new people. It was a lovely and cool summer night, not quite dark yet. The car windows were open and I sang along, just like I had done so many times twelve years ago. I don't "play guitar" or "sing my songs in the sunshine," and no one is squeezing my limes (ha!), but basically, it's pretty close. Living in the big time time, indeed.