Here We Go: Evangelist Franklin Graham Hits Back at Hate Claims After UK Venue Cancels Tour Date Over ‘Incompatible Views’ Regarding Gay Marriage  — This is Why I am Urging Franklin Graham and Other Evangelical Leaders to Firmly Tell President Trump that he Needs to Roll Everything Back that Former President Obama Did Regarding Homosexuality and Homosexual Marriage in This Country and he Needs to Encourage the Supreme Court to Overturn their Ruling from when Obama Was President, Because what Happened to him in England is Going to Happen to him in America and It is Happening Already

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Here We Go: Evangelist Franklin Graham Hits Back at Hate Claims After UK Venue Cancels Tour Date Over ‘Incompatible Views’ Regarding Gay Marriage  — This is Why I am Urging Franklin Graham and Other Evangelical Leaders to Firmly Tell President Trump that he Needs to Roll Everything Back that Former President Obama Did Regarding Homosexuality and Homosexual Marriage in This Country and he Needs to Encourage the Supreme Court to Overturn their Ruling from when Obama Was President, Because what Happened to him in England is Going to Happen to him in America and It is Happening Already

An American evangelical preacher has hit back after a venue on his UK tour decided to cancel his show following a string of complaints from the LGBT community.

Franklin Graham was due to visit Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and London later this year.

But the ACC Liverpool conference centre has decided to cancel the 67-year-old’s show after branding his views ‘incompatible’ with their values.

Graham, who is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, has previously described gay marriage as a ‘sin’ and has advocated against bids to ban ‘gay conversion therapy’.

Members of the LGBT community in several of the cities he was due to visit petitioned venues and local political leaders to stop him from speaking.

But in an open letter to the ‘UK LGBTQ community’, Graham has said ‘we are all sinners’ and denied he was bringing hate speech to Britain.

He wrote on Facebook yesterday: ‘A letter to the LGBTQ community in the UK –

‘It is said by some that I coming to the UK to bring hateful speech to your community. This is just not true.

‘I am coming to share the Gospel, which is the Good News that God loves the people of the UK, and that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save us from our sins.’

He continued by saying he thinks the ‘rub’ is over ‘whether God defines homosexuality as a sin’.

The preacher continued: ‘The answer is yes. But God goes even further than that, to say that we are all sinners, myself included.

‘The Bible says that every human being is guilty of sin and in need of forgiveness and cleansing.’

He later added: ‘My message to all people is that they can be forgiven and they can have a right relationship with God.’

‘The Gospel is inclusive. I’m not coming out of hate. I’m coming out of love.’

The preacher than invited all members of the community to attend his tour dates.

Graham is currently on a tour of Florida, which has attracted protests from thousands of other Christians.

He also reportedly described Islam an ‘evil and very wicked religion’ during political rallies in the US last year and is a prominent ally of Donald Trump.

Graham was due to visit Liverpool Exhibition Centre on June 12 as part of his tour.

The ACC Liverpool said it had been made aware of a ‘number of statements’ which Graham has made which they ‘consider to be incompatible’ with their ethical values.

A venue spokesman said: ‘The Graham Tour UK event which was originally planned to take place at ACC Liverpool in June 2020 will no longer be going ahead.

‘Over the past few days we have been made aware of a number of statements which we consider to be incompatible with our values.

‘In light of this we can no longer reconcile the balance between freedom of speech and the divisive impact this event is having in our city.

‘We have informed the organisers of the event that the booking will no longer be fulfilled.

‘We are proud to represent all communities and will continue to move forward with our aim as a business to drive profile, major events and economic impact for Liverpool City Region.’

The decision to cancel the show came after a petition was started by the Liverpool Labour LGBT Network.

It read: ‘We are writing for support from our locally elected council representatives in response to the platforming of homophobic hate preacher Franklin Graham on the 12th of June 2020.’

‘We fear that with such a high profile event gaining traction, Graham’s appearance may incite hateful mobilisation and risk the security of our LGBTQ+ community.

‘We ask the council to stand with our community in counter mobilisation, including refusing to host Graham’s roadshow at venues where the local authority has a stake.’

A protest against the preacher’s visit was also held on Saturday in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, where he was also due to speak in June.

Sheffield Mayor Dan Jarvis has criticised the preacher, and said in a statement: ‘Sheffield is a city of sanctuary.

‘We welcome people from all backgrounds, irrespective of race, religion, belief or their sexuality.

‘As a city and as a region, we are proud to stand for equality, diversity, respect and compassion.

‘I believe in free speech and of the right to freedom of expression, within the parameters of the law.

‘But I also believe in people’s rights to disagree with extreme beliefs such as those preached by Franklin Graham. Intolerance cannot be welcomed here in South Yorkshire.’

The Sheffield LGBT community has also taken aim at Graham in a letter to the Sheffield venue, which is run by the Sheffield City Trust.

Representative Heather Paterson, said: ‘Franklin Graham has repeatedly publicly promoted his homophobic beliefs, including but not limited to branding homosexuality a sin.

‘We believe that these statements far exceed freedom of speech and are direct hate speech and incitement to violence against LGBTQ+ communities and individuals, which should not be welcomed in our city or anywhere else.’

There was further uproar in Glasgow when residents heard he is due to speak there this summer.

Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of Glasgow Cathedral, said on Twitter: ‘Have just heard that Franklin Graham is coming to the SSE Hydro in Glasgow next year. Very surprised to hear that @SSE would want to be associated with him. #homophobia’

Trans Activist Anna Nicholson, said: ‘Apparently anti-LGBT hate-preacher and Trump supporter Franklin Graham is following in his vile father’s footsteps and doing a UK tour this year.’

Peter Nimmo, Church of Scotland Minister in Inverness, fumed: ‘Franklin Graham tour includes Glasgow. I trust Scottish churches give him the cold shoulder, too.’

The evangelical preacher took aim at US presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for being a self-described gay Christian in April last year.

In tweets, Graham criticised Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and said that the Bible defines homosexuality as ‘something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized.’

One tweet said: ‘Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian.

‘As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman – not two men, not two women.’

Representatives of Mr Graham have been contacted for comment.

SOURCE: Daily Mail, Lara Keay

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Dolly Parton and For King and Country Win Grammy for ‘God Only Knows’

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Dolly Parton and For King and Country Win Grammy for ‘God Only Knows’


Dolly Parton and For King and Country Win Grammy for ‘God Only Knows’

In collaboration with the Christian duo For King and Country, Dolly Parton won her ninth Grammy award over the weekend for the single “God Only Knows.”

Though Parton couldn’t attend the ceremony, Josh and Luke Smallbone of For King and Country praised the country music legend in their acceptance speech, according to CBN News. 

“To dear Dolly Parton who is an incredible human being,” they said. “It’s one of the greatest moments of our career to collaborate with her and her team. She said, ‘I love this because it’s reaching to the marginalized, the depressed, the suicidal, which is all of us at some point.’”

The song won in the Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance and Song category. The song highlights struggles that only God knows with a refrain that includes the lines: “God only knows what you’ve been through//God only knows what they say about you//God only knows the real you//There’s a kind of love that God only knows.”

Parton was also nominated for her song “Girl in the Movies” with Linda Perry.

“What incredible news to be nominated for two Grammy Awards!” she wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s always a sweet thing to have your peers recognize and celebrate the music you make.”

Earlier last year, Parton and the song “God Only Knows” made waves at the CMA Awards. Women of country music were spotlighted, including Parton, who helped…

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If you’ve eaten kiwi, thank this woman: The urgency and opportunity of innovation

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If you’ve eaten kiwi, thank this woman: The urgency and opportunity of innovation

If you’ve eaten kiwi, you have Frieda Rapoport Caplan to thank.

In the early 1960s, she began a business distributing
unusual fruit. One example was Chinese gooseberry, which was renamed as
kiwifruit (soon shortened to kiwi). Mrs. Caplan was instrumental in promoting
the fruit, which gradually took hold in the US.

At the time, she said later, “There wasn’t so much
interest in fresh fruits and vegetables, and we didn’t have innovative produce
departments. The mind-set of produce merchandisers was potatoes, onions,
grapefruit and apples. It was a matter of finding people who were innovative
and progressive and getting them together with people who had something to
offer.”

She built her success as a woman in a largely male business.
By 2003, her company had annual sales of $50 million. Mrs. Caplan died January
18 at the age of ninety-six.

The urgency and opportunity of innovation

Reading the Times profile reinforced for me the
urgency and opportunity of innovation. Farmers were growing produce that
customers would want if only someone could overcome the inertia of traditional
companies. It took an outsider to see possibilities that changed the industry.

Frieda Caplan’s story is also a model for Christians who
want to impact their culture for Christ.

The mantra is worth repeating: we must always be willing to
change our methods to communicate our unchanging message.

Jesus fed hungry bodies to feed hungry souls. He used
momentary circumstances to teach eternal truth (cf. Matthew 6:26, where he
pointed to the “birds of the air” as illustrating God’s provision for
us all).

Paul quoted Scripture in synagogues (Acts 13:17–22) and
Greek philosophers with Greek philosophers (Acts 17:28). His strategy should be
ours: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might
save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Like Paul, you have been given influence by your Lord. Like
Jesus’ first disciples, you…

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ISIS Declares War on Israel and the Jews

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ISIS Declares War on Israel and the Jews


ISIS Declares War on Israel and the Jews

Despite the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October of last year, the terrorist group has found a new mission: attack and slaughter Jews. In a recording released on Monday, the new ISIS leader Sheikh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashemi Al-Quarashi exhorted Muslim extremists, according to CBN News.

“Oh soldiers of the caliphate everywhere, especially in beloved Sinai and blessed Syria, go for the Israeli settlements and marketplaces,” he said. “Turn them into lands for testing your weapons and chemical rockets and other types [of weapons]. To the Muslims in Palestine and all countries: Be a spearhead in the war against the Jews and in thwarting their plans and their ‘Deal of the Century.’”

This week, President Trump will release a peace plan to resolve conflict between Israel and Palestine that includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz. Palestine, however, was not included in the negotiations of the plan and has already rejected it, according to the Associated Press.

The focus on Jerusalem is not very new. In 2016, three terrorists killed four and wounded seven in open fire in the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, according to the Jerusalem Post. And in a recent report released by Germany, officials warned the country of a rise in antisemitic attacks, specifically at the hands of Islam extremists.

But the threats didn’t stop with the Jewish community. Abu…

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Virginia Legislature Advances Bills to Loosen Abortion Restrictions

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Virginia Legislature Advances Bills to Loosen Abortion Restrictions


Virginia Legislature Advances Bills to Loosen Abortion Restrictions

Two years after the Virginia legislature declared Jan. 22—the Roe v. Wade anniversary—as the “Day of Tears in Virginia,” in memory of “the innocents who have lost their lives to abortion,” the Democrat-controlled governing body is poised to dismantle the state’s pro-life protections.

Liberals hit the trifecta in November after voters there secured Democratic majorities in both the House of Delegates and state Senate, erecting an impenetrable wall with Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam—for the first time in nearly three decades.

Last week, a House committee advanced a bill to the floor that would allow nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives to perform first-trimester abortions while eliminating regulations mandating a 24-hour waiting period and ultrasounds before such procedures. It would also roll back a law requiring clinics performing more than a few abortions a month have hospital-equivalent facility standards.

Additionally, all health coverage plans would be required to cover the costs of services, drugs, devices and procedures related to abortions under the umbrella of reproductive health.

“We’d had decades of barriers and restrictions put up here in the Commonwealth and so we have a lot of work to do,” Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, told NPR’s WAMU 88.5.

State Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko, a chief co-sponsor of one of the bills, said the…

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The 75-year-old Texas woman who will race up the Eiffel Tower

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The 75-year-old Texas woman who will race up the Eiffel Tower

Marsha O’Loughlin will go to Paris this March, but not to snap photos of the Eiffel Tower. She’ll be running up its stairs instead.

O’Loughlin lives in a retirement community in Denton, Texas,
though she doesn’t seem to have retired. She competes in a sport called tower
running. As the name implies, it involves racing up skyscrapers, towers, and
stadium stairs. She’s ranked first in her age group nationally and
seventy-sixth among all women globally.

“I never take an elevator up a building unless it’s the
only way up,” she says.

In preparation for the Eiffel Tower competition, O’Loughlin
will run up the thirty-two floors (532 stairs) of the Wyndham Springfield City
Centre in Springfield, Illinois next month. She intends to complete as many
ascents of the building as possible in one hour, descending via elevator.

“People seem impressed with me,” she says. “I
don’t think what I do is a big deal. It’s what I’ve been doing for years.”
She does have a problem, however: “I wish I could find a good training
partner, but it’s hard to find someone with the same goals at my age.”

Seek the character leading to enduring vitality

There are biblical precedents for Marsha O’Loughlin.

When Moses died at the age of one hundred and twenty,
“his eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated” (Deuteronomy 34:7).

When Caleb was eighty-five, he testified, “I am still
as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as
my strength was then, for war and for coming and going” (Joshua 14:11).

God uses young people like Joseph (Genesis 41:46) and
elderly people like John on Patmos (Revelation 1). Our chronological age is no
barrier to his empowering Spirit. Whatever he calls us to do, he enables us to
do.

Our part is to seek the character that leads to enduring
vitality.

The psalmist noted: “The righteous flourish like the
palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They…

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Democrat Senator Says He Is Unsure of How He Will Vote on Impeachment

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Democrat Senator Says He Is Unsure of How He Will Vote on Impeachment


Democrat Senator Says He Is Unsure of How He Will Vote on Impeachment

Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, says he isn’t sure how he will vote on the possible Senate impeachment of President Donald Trump.

According to USA Today, Jones said he has taken some 240 pages of notes during the trial.

“He did make some good points on a couple of things on factual issues that I’ve got concerns about, especially with regard to Article II,” Jones said of the arguments made by Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump’s counsel defending him during the trial.

Jones says that while Dershowitz’s arguments against Article II were sound, he is not sold on the president’s counsel’s argument on Article I.

“And Article I, they’re focusing solely on the (July 25th call) transcript and there’s so much more to the story than the transcript, and they continue to talk about cross-examination of witnesses but yet they continue to block witnesses that have first-hand knowledge. That’s disingenuous,” the Senator asserted.

According to USA Today, Jones says he is trying to view each article separately.

“My training as a judge is saying, each count stands on its own. And that’s how I’m trying to continue to look at this.

“I ask myself a lot of questions and I’ll go back, I’ll argue with myself a lot tonight,” he said with a smile. “It’s the way I do things.”

To impeach President Trump, the Senate needs a supermajority of 67 senators. Political experts say it’s unlikely that there will be…

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Desiring God Examines How Politics Has Changed the Meaning of ‘Evangelicals’

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Desiring God Examines How Politics Has Changed the Meaning of ‘Evangelicals’


Desiring God Examines How Politics Has Changed the Meaning of ‘Evangelicals’

Since Donald Trump burst onto the political scene in 2016, there is one group among which he has maintained consistent and unwavering support – white evangelicals. While votes from the faith community have been invaluable to Trump’s political goals, some have also lamented the subsequent effect politics have had on distorting the true meaning of the term “evangelical.” Indeed, in our divisive political times, evangelicals are seen – at least in the mainstream media – as being almost synonymous with President Trump.

“Evangelicalism went from being America’s most controversial religious movement to its most reviled one,” writes the Vardaman Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, Thomas S. Kidd, in a feature piece at Desiring God. Trump’s election, Kidd said, has “generated an often-acrimonious debate among scholars about whether embracing “Trumpism” was an aberration for white evangelicals, or instead, a natural outgrowth of what the movement always has represented.”

As ever, the media has happily labeled all evangelicals as Trump supporters. This, along with an inability to define what being an “evangelical” truly means in the context of our current cultural climate, has caused a “crisis with acute political ramifications,” according to Kidd.

The problem, Kidd argues, goes far beyond political jostling. Rather, there is…

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Going barefoot on airplanes: The fallacy of private sin

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Going barefoot on airplanes: The fallacy of private sin

“Is it ever OK to go barefoot on a plane?”

So asks the Wall Street Journal, pointing to recent
viral videos showing airline passengers imposing their bare feet on others.

One clip shows us a sockless flier using her toe to scroll
through movie options on her monitor. I’m thinking, I could be the next
person to use that screen. It’s not a pleasant thought.

A passenger dries a shoe using the overhead air vent. Another
rests her bare foot on the armrest. Passengers are putting their bare feet on
tray tables, inside the seat pocket, and even on other seats.

Major carriers, including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines,
American Airlines, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines, explicitly state that bare
feet are grounds for removal from a flight.

But in a day when airline passengers are wearing more casual
clothing than ever (I’ve seen passengers in pajamas and sweats they would
probably not otherwise wear in public), it seems that bare feet are here to
stay.

This trend points up a fact our culture is ill-equipped to
understand: private sin never stays private.

Private sins vs. public consequences

We live in a postmodern society that rejects the very
concept of objective morality or absolute truth. “Sin” for many is an
outdated Puritan concept.

As a result, examining the relation between private sins and
public consequences is not a discussion most are willing or able to have. But
the ramifications of our moral obtuseness are no less real.

The pathway of sin is clear: “Each person is tempted
when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has
conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth
death” (James 1:14–15).

Private desire leads to public death. And not just for the
sinner.

Pharaoh’s refusal to liberate the Jews led to plagues that
nearly destroyed the Egyptian nation. David’s sin with Bathsheba led to the
death of their child (2 Samuel 12:18). King…

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Huey Lewis pushes past hearing pain to keep making music

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Huey Lewis pushes past hearing pain to keep making music

There’s mixed news when it comes to Huey Lewis these days. The good part is that the ’80s hitmaker and his band have their first new album in 19 years and a jukebox stage musical.

The bad news? He might not be able to hear all of it.

The 69-year-old frontman for Huey Lewis & The News was jolted in 2018 when he was diagnosed with a disorder of the inner ear called Meniere’s disease.

It brings hearing loss, vertigo, ringing in the ear and a feeling of fullness. How much Lewis hears on any day depends on the day and there’s often a low roar.

“My hearing fluctuates episodically,” he says. “Usually it’s only bad for a week. But, I mean, really bad, where I’m almost deaf. And then it gets like it is now, which is just sort of bad. But I can’t seem to stabilize.”

Lewis isn’t letting the disease stop him from making music, with a new Huey Lewis & The News album called “Weather” out on Valentine’s Day and hopes for a Broadway run of the musical “The Heart of Rock & Roll.” As Lewis sings in one new song: “Though I ain’t getting any younger/I’m a long way from done.”

“I try and stay creative,” he says. “I also remind myself I don’t have cancer yet.” His mind takes him to contemporaries like Tom Petty and Glenn Frey, a friend. “There’s many, many people worse off than me so it’s important to be thankful for just everything I have.”

“Weather” offers an assortment of styles, from honky-tonk and blues to ballads and the band’s signature horn-drenched upbeat, humorous pop. (One song name-checks Sleep Number beds.)

The opening tune, “While We’re Young,” shows Lewis adjusting to late middle-age, with the line, “Tell the kids we’ll be late/and we’ll need time to recuperate.”

“What do you write about when you’re my age? I mean it’s got to be age appropriate,” he says. “You can’t write about cars and girls anymore. You know what I mean?”

The album will transport fans to a time when Lewis and his band blazed up the charts with hits like “The Power of Love,” “I Want a New Drug,” “Hip to Be Square” and “Stuck with You.”

Lewis hopes fans will soon hear those songs again when the jukebox musical “The Heart of Rock & Roll” finds its next stop. The show, which has an original story unconnected to Lewis, broke the record for highest gross per performance at San Diego’s Old Globe theater in 2018. Lewis hopes it gets to Broadway.

He’s had a hand in helping the music along, first making sure the songs were handled properly. “I didn’t want them to be too cringe-worthy,” he says. Lewis tweaked some lyrics to make them able to be sung by different people and in contexts he never anticipated, crediting music supervisor and orchestrator Brian Usifer for creatively reworking his tunes for a word-driven show.

“When our version zigs, his version zags, and he stayed away from our versions and yet sort of reinvented them. And it’s really, really neat,” Lewis says. “The best comment that I get when people see the show is that it seems like the songs were written for the show.”

Usifer, a songwriter himself as well as the music director of “Kinky Boots” and “Frozen” on Broadway, grew up as a fan of Lewis’ music and was bowled over when Lewis trusted him to change it to make it work onstage.

“Supportive is the word I would say he’s been the most: Game to try anything and game to see something work or not work,” Usifer says. He and Lewis also wrote the new song “Be Someone” specifically for the musical, something the younger man calls the “ultimate thrill.”

Usifer has worked with Lewis after the Meniere’s disease diagnosis and says the two have managed to work out a way to communicate about the music. “I give him so much credit for being so open and brave about it,” he says. “He comes to rehearsals and he’s a happy, positive guy who’s really thrilled to be there. For whatever he’s going through outside of that, he allows the process to still be productive and positive.”

The musical and the album have kept Lewis busy and kept his mind off his hearing loss. He relies on hearing aids that play tones. When he puts them on and hears five, he’s good. Bad days are when he can only hear one.

“The first two months were suicidal. I mean I literally would contemplate my demise,” he says. “I’d think, ‘Man, this is horrible. I can’t live like this.’ Tinnitus roaring in my head and couldn’t hear anything. But, you know, you can get used to almost anything.”

Music is still coming out of him, thankfully. On the album, Lewis wrote a very personal song about his love affair with music called “One of the Boys.”

He was asked to write the song for Willie Nelson and said he really didn’t think much of it. “Then weeks later for some reason I just woke up with this song completely in my head,” he says.

It’s a twangy tune with lyrics about the singer being 9 or 10 when he saw his very first band. “I knew immediately, that’s where I wanted to be/with them boys up on the stand/playing in a honky-tonk band,” go the lyrics. Nelson never recorded it but Lewis still loved it so he added it to “Weather.”

“When I finished writing it I realized, ‘Oh my God. It’s my life story. It’s exactly my life story,’” he says. “It was one of the things that just came through me and I realized, ‘Oh my gosh. This came from somewhere deep.’”

___

Source: Associated Press – Mark Kennedy

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