"I Just Need You Now"

This morning at work, we were listening to a local Waco radio station, 106.1 Doc fm. As I walked past the steel worktables that lead to the office in the back of the metalworks shop, I was mentally transported to the soft, laid back little bakery/coffee shop with the pervasive aroma of rising dough and the sweet scent of freshly baked pastries, This vision remains cemented in my memory by the Lady Antebellum song “Need You Now” that was playing in the background. I could not for the life of me figure out why this bakery in Tiberias, Israel was playing a country song, specifically this song, which at the time, I’d hardly heard before! It was so funny to me that any Jew or Arab would be at all interested in American country music.

Since that June day in Tiberias, I have heard that song over and over on the radio, and every time I wonder and kinda laugh at the seemingly random thought of this being the only English song I remember hearing on the trip at all. What was it that made this song appealing to the people living in Israel?

The song speaks of two people who are hurting. Every man alive can associate with pain, especially the people living in Israel, Jew or Arab, Israeli or Palestinian. Every culture knows the pain of losing someone you love or the pain of severing a relationship. It appeals to people all across the board of ethnicities and religions.

We here in the ‘States are not too different from either Israeli or Palestinian. We have the same emotions that leave our chests heaving. So let us not forget the problems of our human brothers just because they are so distantly removed from us. Just because they aren’t next door does not mean that we do not influence each other. We in American must give ear to the plights and problems of the rest of the world, the world we are a part of. And not just by way of our politicians and the government, but the ear of individual man who can feel as they do. The rest of the world needs us now.