Day 18: You Have to Ask for What You Want
A piece on the wall at the Patsy Cline Museum in Nashville.
Patsy Cline is in the Grand Ole Opry because she said, Hey, hoss. Deal me in.
I love this story.
Cline first performed at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955. In 1960, she still hadn’t been invited to be a member, even though she was a cross-over hit-maker. On January 9, 1960, Patsy simply walked up to the Grand Ole Opry boss, Ott Devine, and asked for membership. Devine said, “Patsy, if that’s all you want, you’re on the Opry.”
[When you read Wreck Your Heart, now you’ll recognize where the name Devine came from.]
Why wasn’t Patsy Cline invited properly into the Opry? Who knows? Probably they just hadn’t got around to it yet. And I bet some people might have looked askance at a lady (especially a lady, natch) ASKING for what she wanted instead of patiently waiting to have the invitation land on her doorstep.
But how patient would she have needed to be? Years? More than the five years she’d already been waiting?By 1963, Cline was dead in a plane crash. How many more years should she have bided her time? Why should she have been shy about what she wanted?
The other thing I love about Patsy is that she used to say “no dough, no show.” As in—you want to hear me sing? Pay me.
Just because she loved to sing and was good at it, didn’t mean she was doing it for free. She was a professional. She was doing a job, doing it well, and if you wanted the goods, you were buying them.
Wreck Your Heart isn’t just about country music. It’s about leaning into the thing you love and going hard for the thing you want. As I was writing it (and feeling some feelings about my own place in the world, in particular the publishing world), I discovered (from my good friend Ann Cleeves! Never get tired of saying that) the Northern England saying “Shy bairns get nowt” or “Shy bairns get no cake.” “Nowt” means nothing. Bairns means children.
Basically, if you’re quiet about what you want, you might go without. I have had to ask for more. Have you? It’s not a comfortable place. But to quote one of my very favorite TV shows, “Somebody Somewhere,” what’s wrong with wanting a little bit more?
Watch it. You will not regret it.
Patsy Cline, safe to say, was not shy about what she wanted. Why should we be?
Patsy Cline’s membership plaque in the Grand Ole Opry. Next to her good friend Loretta Lynn.
Now I’m going to ask you to pre-order Wreck Your Heart.
You can do that wherever you buy books, or you can order it from anywhere I’m speaking for the launch to get one signed and stamped with a cute cowgirl boot.
You know you want the cute cowgirl boot.