Randy Travis has had a fantastic career with over 25 million records sold and multiple Grammy, CMA, ACM, and Dove awards. Many of his songs have resonated with people through the years. With 70 singles released, Travis has notched 16 No.1 country hits.
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When “Three Wooden Crosses,” featured on his 14th album Rise and Shine, was released in 2002, Travis had not had a No. 1 song in nearly a decade. The story in the song is told with such word economy, that the explanation of the song takes more words than the lyrics themselves.
The beginning
A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher
Ridin’ on a midnight bus bound for Mexico
One’s headed for vacation, one for higher education
And two of them were searchin’ for lost souls
That driver never ever saw the stop sign
And eighteen-wheelers can’t stop on a dime
Songwriters Kim Williams and Doug Johnson wrote “Three Wooden Crosses” after Williams came up with the opening line. The rhyme scheme within the first line catches your attention as you process what an odd group of people this is. It lends itself to the fact that these people are randomly gathered on a bus where they don’t necessarily know each other. Johnson created the four characters and presented the idea to Williams. The two teamed up to write the song from there. The tragedy is revealed in the first verse. It is implied but not confirmed until the chorus.
The Accident
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway
Why there’s not four of them, Heaven only knows
I guess it’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you
It’s what you leave behind you when you go
The chorus reveals that three markers have been laid at the spot of the tragedy. It also sets up the fact that there is a mystery here. Four central characters have been established (Five if you count the driver). Only three wooden crosses are accounted for.
The Setup
That farmer left a harvest, a home, and eighty acres
The faith and love for growin’ things in his young son’s heart
And that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children
Did her best to give ’em all a better start
And that preacher whispered, “Can’t you see the Promised Land?”
As he laid his blood-stained Bible in that hooker’s hand
This verse plays out the story. It shares what was left behind by three of the key figures. The farmer passed on his legacy to his son. The teacher had shared her knowledge with waves of children that would continue on. The preacher passes the Bible to the hooker. It is not conveyed how the preacher does this. It is purely a statement that doesn’t contain judgment, blame, or salvation. That part is left up to the listener to process.
The Reveal
That’s the story that our preacher told last Sunday
As he held that blood-stained Bible up
For all of us to see
He said, “Bless the farmer, and the teacher, and the preacher
Who gave this Bible to my mama
Who read it to me”
The identifier here is “blood-stained bible.” The effective part of the story is that it is implied that the hooker is the survivor of the four, and she passed on the bloody book as well as the virtues contained in it. Her son is now the preacher sharing the story of the song.
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway
Why there’s not four of them, now I guess we know
It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you
It’s what you leave behind you when you go
The big reveal enhances the context of the chorus. The idea of what humanity leaves behind and the importance of how we share our passion, knowledge, virtues, and even the story of how we got where we are. The song was released on Word Records and became the first Christian label release to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Country Singles chart. The song was awarded a Dove award for “Country Song of the Year” and a CMA award for Song of the Year.
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