Andy York

Three Wooden Crosses
(Randy Travis)

Randy Travis is an American country singer active since 1985. He has recorded more than a dozen studio albums to date, in addition to charting more than thirty singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which sixteen have reached Number One. Considered a pivotal figure in the history of country music, Travis broke through in the mid-1980s with the release of his album 'Storms of Life'. The album sold more than three million copies. It also established him as a neotraditionalist country act, and was followed by a string of several more platinum and multi-platinum albums throughout his career.

"Three Wooden Crosses" was the first single from his 2002 album, Rise and Shine and it became Travis' sixteenth Number One single. It was named Song of the Year by the Country Music Association in 2003. The song describes a fatal late night accident on a bus traveling from the United States to Mexico. It describes four passengers, a "farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher" and recounts what positive impacts three of them have achieved with their lives while giving no mention of the prostitute's lifestyle. At the end of his life, the preacher lays his Bible in the hands of the prostitute. Throughout the song there is mention of "three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway." This is a duel reference to roadside memorials and to crosses that, in 1984, funded by Reverend Bernard Coffindaffer, began appearing on the sides of highways across the USA. These crosses stand in the traditional Christian formation of a tall cross in the middle and two slightly shorter crosses on each side representing the Crucifixion of Jesus. Because there are four people featured in the song, the lyrics ask why there are only three crosses and not four.

The end of the song reveals that the story of the four passengers was being told by a preacher during Sunday church services and that he is, in fact, the son of the prostitute whose life had been spared in the crash. She read the Bible to her son that had been given to her by the dying preacher, and in turn her son eventually become a preacher himself. The song passes on two morals: it is how one conducts himself while alive and what positive reflections that person leaves behind which are important; it is never too late to change, reshaping in a positive way one's own life or helping to reshape the lives of others.