Patriotism revs 'Private Malone' into high gear

By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY

	Dual Tone Records
	David Ball sings of a soldier's Corvette in Riding With Private Malone.

While singers all over Nashville scrambled to get into recording studios to record patriotic songs after Sept. 11, the country song that tapped most subtly and profoundly into the emotions of its audience was already on the radio. Shipped to country stations a month before the terrorist attacks, David Ball's Riding With Private Malone tells of a man who buys a '66 Corvette for $1,000, then finds a note from the car's previous owner in the glove box. Penned by a soldier shipping out for Vietnam, it reads: "If you're reading this, then I didn't make it home. But for every dream that's shattered, another one comes true. This car was once a dream of mine. Now it belongs to you." Later, the man wrecks the car and is saved from the fiery crash by a mysterious stranger he swears was the private.

"It was an American story that's almost like a myth or a legend," Ball says. "How many guys from Vietnam had Corvettes waiting on them when they came home?"

			Country's 'tis of thee
			Top 5 crisis-related songs on country radio currently: • God Bless the USA — Lee Greenwood's 1984 patriotic anthem. • One More Day — Diamond Rio song from early 2001 used first as Dale Earnhardt tribute, then as post-crisis survival mantra. • Riding With Private Malone — See story. • Where the Stars & the Stripes and the Eagle Fly — New patriotic rouser by Aaron Tippin. • There Will Come a Day — Faith Hill's 1999 gospel-tinged inspirational song, performed on the recent all-network telethon. Source: Country Airplay Monitor

On the surface, Riding With Private Malone is a country-music ghost story with both tragic and hopeful elements.

Additionally, it's an allegory for freedom and sacrifice.

"When you're young and you're living life on the edge, the ultimate balance of things is to have that hot car, which equals pretty girls," says Wood Newton, who wrote the song with Thom Shepherd. "It's the American dream, man."

That dream comes as a bargain for the Corvette's buyer, because someone else paid its true price. Later, when the dream crashes and burns, the soldier comes to the rescue again.

For Newton, a Nashville fixture who also wrote the Oak Ridge Boys' 1982 crossover hit, Bobbie Sue, the song hits closer to home than most: His cousin died when he crashed his Corvette on the day he returned from Vietnam.

For Ball, it's a return to his mid-'90s success with such hits as Thinkin' Problem and When the Thought of You Catches Up With Me. Before Private Malone, Ball hadn't had a record on the charts in more than two years. The song is on his album Amigo, out today.

Private Malone already was off to a strong start on radio before Sept. 11.

"We had a hit record before the attack," says Dual Tone Records co-founder Dan Herrington. Now, Herrington says he expects Private Malone to at least break the country top 10, a huge success for the young, independent label.

Private Malone, despite being about a soldier who died in Vietnam, also may offer a glimpse into the future.

Newton says he recently received an e-mail from a Mississippi woman whose son is a private and just shipped out: "He bought him a Corvette and said, 'I want to own one of these before I die.' "