West Texas Exiles and Jimmie Dale Gilmore song benefits The Big Bend Sentinel
Austin writer Glenn Smith thinks a lot about the Big Bend, which he’s grown to love over the years, and he’s researched and written about the border wall fight.
It’s why an idea sprung in his head on a long drive. “So Big Bend was on my mind still, and I’m driving along the highway and I’m thinking, ‘You know, the movement needs an anthem. You know, they really need a song, not necessarily a protest song.’ So anyway, I’m having that thought going, ‘What kind of song would be a good one?’”
When he arrived home, the phone rang. It was a longtime Houston friend. “My son has written a song,” he tells Smith. “I want you to hear it.” The song — written by Houston songwriter Christian Staehely — was perfect for what he was thinking of.
Smith and another musician/producer, Eric Harrison, started coordinating musicians, and the production of the piece came together with the combo of the West Texas Exiles — an Austin band — and sometimes Terlingua resident, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, titled “Big Bend, Take Me In.”
“The main thing that I love about it was it came from an unexpected direction,” Gilmore says. “Christian Staheli is a friend of ours that we don’t really see that often. But, his dad, Al Staheli, sent us that song, and it was just the timing of it was so perfect, and the song was so good. It was kind of like a little treasure fell into our hands, you know? Like finding a wonderful arrowhead out in the Big Bend or something.”
The song doesn’t directly speak to the border wall issue and instead is a melodic piece that ponders the wide open spaces that offer the opportunity to reflect on life.
It’s rare these days
To hear nothing at all
No station to find
No one to call
Just a whole lotta nothing
That makes me feel something
What does a man really know?
“The song turned out to be so good because it’s a love song rather than a criticism song,” Gilmore says.
But the wall did play a part, in that Smith felt it important for the song to serve as a vehicle for supporting efforts to inform people about the threat of the construction planned for the border. “I’m in Terlingua now, looking out over the mountains as I write,” Smith penned on his Substack. “I think the song will speak to many who have a special love for a special place. America’s national parks and unique, tender landscapes find themselves under assault these days. I imagine a song like this could be written about all of them.”
Smith decided to donate all proceeds from the download of the song on Bandcamp to The Big Bend Sentinel for the role it has played in covering the border wall. The song will then be released on November 20 to other platforms.
To download the song, visit westtexasexiles.bandcamp.com/track/big-bend-take-me-in.
