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Seven Spanish Angels

     Hey, everyone. I was on my way home tonight and heard one of my favorite older songs called Seven Spanish Angels. It is by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. I don't know if you've heard it or not, but here's the recipe.
    This song is the story of a young couple during the old west days of gunfights and fugitives that fled across the Rio Grande to start a new life in Mexico. One such young man had just married a lovely young lass when his pursuers from Texas finally caught up with him. In the presence of that young wife, he determined that "If they take me back to Texas, they won't take me back alive!"
     Well, they shot him down in the street, in front of his wife and friends. Then the girl determined that she "didn't want to live without her man. She knew his gun was empty and she knew she couldn't win, but her final prayer was answered, when the rifles fired again. Then seven Spanish angels took another angel home."
    Have you ever loved someone like that? Have you ever known true desperation? Have you been to that scary place where you find out what you're made of? Maybe you wondered all your life what you'd be like when the chips were down.
     I wish I could write a book as good as this song. It tells a novel's worth of story in about three minutes. I love it when Ray starts putting some of that soul in it and he says, "Help me now". I had a chance to go see that rascal just before he died and I wimped out and didn't go. Sigh.
     You think that the angels care about star-crossed lovers? I do. My wife and I have a favorite song by Tommy James and the Shondells called I Think We're Alone Now, which takes us back to the day when we ran away to get married. 40 years later, we're still hanging out together. Maybe those seven Spanish angels are still around. I hope so.
     From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
P.S. Go to you-tube and watch the video of Ray and Willie doing this song.
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