One night I was at a concert in downtown Nashville and a band I had never heard before was opening for the artist I had gone to see. After about three songs, I turned to my friend and said, “These folks are from west Tennessee.” I make no claims to be a prophet, mind you, it was just something in the music that tipped me off. Somehow the mud from the Mississippi River finds its way into the music of folks from out there.

Once you get a few hours East of the Father of Waters, things change drastically. Instead of the sound of barges and the echoes of monstrous floods reverberating off the cliffs, you begin to hear steel guitar and fiddle tunes floating along the breeze. By the time you make it to Nashville, you’ve left the rock-and-roll swagger of Memphis behind and found yourself in the shadows of grand universities that lead folks around there to call that city the Athens of the South. It’s the place where the world’s greatest musicians migrate to in order to make something of themselves. And it’s the place where they sweep broken dreams off the street to make room for all the tourists looking for a night out on the town.

Drive on another couple of hours, and once you’ve crested a few hills you find yourself in East Tennessee, home of the University of Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains. The region is defined by the Appalachian Mountains, which runs from Georgia all the way up to Canada and has a haunting mystique to it. You can drive into those mountains and you might as well be on another planet from Memphis and Nashville.

The three regions are why the Tennessee flag has three stars on it; these three divisions make the state what it is, even if they seem so different. I personally love all three for what they bring to the world, and even though I lay my head down in Alabama and probably will til Jesus calls me to glory, there will always be a part of me that calls that place home.