My Better Half

I kick my shoe off, I pull my sock off, and take my pant off
Then I find my pajama and put it on
Then I crawl into the bed and cry my eye out
Now that my better half is gone

I just lay there, and as I lay there, my arm feels so empty
And my lip longs to kiss her all night long
If I had the gut I’d blow my brain out
Now that my better half is gone

I was a whole man when I was with her
Now I’m a plier, I’m a scissor
I’m half this, half that
Half slow, half fast

I’ve got the blue, and I’m up to my elbow in heartache
Now that my better half is gone

Bobby Braddock

“Uncut Gems” is a series of unreleased song lyrics, recipes, notes, and more by prominent Nashville songwriters.

Bobby Braddock moved to Nashville at the age of twenty-four in 1964.  His songs, ranging from “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” to “Time Marches On,” from “Golden Ring” to “People Are Crazy,” have defined and redefined the aesthetics of the country lyric. Braddock, the only man living to have written hit country songs across six decades, wrote my favorite country song, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

I first met Bobby Braddock in the winter of 1983, in the lobby of Tree when the building looked something like a strange Spanish Mission.  He edited “Reckless Night,” the first song I ever had recorded.  He advised me to repeat the two great lines of my chorus and ditch the filler.  It was very good advice.  His memoir, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter’s Youth in Old Florida, was published by LSU Press in 2007. – Alice Randall