Don't Tell Mama I Was Drinking - Commentary

This is a song about, uh
Uh, drinking and driving
You know, this guy is cruising on home
And he sees this truck fly past him

And uh, he can tell in his headlights that the guy is
You know, he's all over the road and
Right in front of his eyes he flies off the road
And goes into the ditch, and so the guy
The singer of this song goes and finds him there

With a, you know there's like a, bottle of whiskey
There laying in the grass next to him
And he's all mangled and, messed up and
You know, the guy's dying words, his dying
To this stranger who just found him in the ditch are
You know, right before he dies he says, you know, just
"Please don't tell my mom I was drinking"

And then he dies
It's a really powerful thing you know
The first time I heard it, it just really, really moved me
Uh, it's a powerful message I think
About, you know how must of us feel about our mom
And how, you know even, even though this guy was about to die
All he really cared about was, was that his mom
Uh, you know, her life wouldn't be ruined by
The fact that he was drinking and driving