I'll try to be brief. I moved to Alexandria, Alabama in the 11th grade, so by the time I graduated, though I had friends, I hadn't had the time to get to know as many people as I'd have liked. However, everyone is a friend of a friend, so there aren't many degrees of separation between us all. So when someone passes away, though I may not have known them personally, I still feel for my friends who did. Such was the case over the past few years with Gina Roden, Phillip McCartney and Kevin Blue, who inspired these lyrics.

SHADE OF BLUE

Sixteen years
Like a rolling stone
Nowhere long enough
To call a home

But I finished school
In this town
And like a boomerang
I come back around

I can hear from here
Through kudzu vines
The muffled drums and cheers
Under Friday lights

So as the honey melts
In my whiskey
Wish I could pour some in my heart
And take away the sting

The wind blows orange through the valley
That’s the color we call our own
And God forbid you have to go
Though we bleed it through and through
Thoughts of you will always add
A nice shade of blue

Seems we share
A field of friends
And when they hurt
I hurt with them

We’ve got our share
Of sin and ego
But we all say a prayer
When we know we need to

Side by side
Measure for measure
We show the better
Angels of our nature

So I’ll raise a toast
To the evening’s end
And the love I found in me
For a friend of friends

(chorus)