Robert Deberry
English 111
Mrs. April Dierks
October 25, 2017
Textual Analysis
The life of country music superstar Eric Church changed forever on October 1, 2017. After headlining the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada the night before, he found out that one man had single handedly shot and killed 58 people and injured 489 others that had attended the festival. Eric Church was scheduled to perform at the Grand Ole Opry on Wednesday, October 4, 2017. As he walked out on stage, alone with his guitar, there was a chilling silence that went through the audience. He began to speak by describing his performance at the festival. He said, “I am here because of Heather and Sonny Melton.” Sonny Melton died protecting his wife. The Meltons were members of the Eric Church Fan Club and had made the trip from Tennessee to Las Vegas just to see Eric Church. He was visibly distraught about what had happened as he continued to say he did not want to be there and had not wanted to play his guitar. However, after he was sent a video of Heather Melton being interviewed on CNN stating Eric Church was “her man’s guy,” and explaining they were going to the Grand Ole Opry after the Vegas show. Not only did he realize he needed to be there, but he also wrote a song about the massacre, “Why Not Me,” that showed his personal struggles as he stood alone with his guitar and played it for the first time at the Grand Ole Opry, just three short days after the tragedy.
“Why Not Me” is a song that clearly makes a social statement about the Las Vegas tragedy. The writer is struggling, like many Americans, with the massacre that had happened. He describes the shooter as “a bad actor starred in his play” and wondered why so many people were preyed upon (Church, line 6). He describes victims from the shooting in the first few lines, “Why you with your long brown hair flowin, / And you with your fresh tattooed skin” (1-2). The chorus of the song describes the inner turmoil that Eric Church is suffering through, “I asked the God of all knowing wisdom, / Why you and why not me” (11-12). He is questioning why all the innocent people were injured or died and not him. He thinks it should have been him instead of “his people” as he called them. Eric Church felt guilty because many of the people were at the festival to see him perform.