Bryce Angell is a cowboy poet. Angell was raised on a farm/ranch in the St. Anthony, Idaho area with approximately 75 head of horses. Horses remain an important part of Angell’s life.
Angell shares his poetry with Cache Valley Daily every Friday.
I was raised up in the country. Proud to be a country boy. Our music twanged
with country and back then the real McCoy.
Johnny Cash would wake you up at early morning light. Then Bill Monroe would
soothe your soul to sleep most every night.
I must have been around eighteen, while visiting a friend. His mother turned on
classical. Said, “Here’s one I recommend.”
She played Bedrich Smetana’s famous piece called, “The Moldau.” That day I
learned how classical can pierce my soul somehow.
I didn’t tell my country friends. ‘Twas too much of a dare. I knew for sure they’d
kid me. We called classical, “Long Hair.”
I must admit I worried. Was I guilty in a way? ‘Cuz the music that weren’t
country felt like sinnin’, you could say.
When thirty years had passed me, kept the secret in my brain. I found myself in
school, a change of living to obtain.
So, I signed up for a music class in hopes to just get through. The gray-haired
aging teacher said, “This class is meant for you.”
I wondered how she really knew or was she just polite? ‘Cuz once again my soul
was stirred from classical delight.
We listened to Beethoven, as the class time would allow. And then our keen
instructor played Smetana’s, “The Moldau.”
I listened so intently to the Moldau’s every note. Then wrapped the music ‘round
me like a winter overcoat.
My music teacher taught me, and she said, “You’ll understand a variety of music
keeps one’s head out of the sand.”
I still love county music, but with classical ya know, I should have pinned my ears
back to its cadence years ago.