After reading wandering through last week’s rabbit hole about Country Music, Vi Wickam sent Indy and me this one-sentence email with a hyperlink.

“Your theory about what makes it country music is similar to that of Bobby Braddock and Malcolm Gladwell.”

I know and trust Vi, so I clicked the hyperlink to Gladwell’s podcast. Fifteen minutes into it, I had to stop, transcribe these lines, and add them to the Random Quotes Database. It is transcription number 5,684.

“But here’s the most important thing: Annelies (the diary of Anne Frank set to music) is specific. It’s a cantata about the actual experiences of a real person, in her own words… Beauty and authenticity can create a mood; they set the stage, but I think the thing that pushes people over the top and into tears is details. We cry when melancholy collides with specificity.”
– Malcolm Gladwell, The King of Tears (audio)