Introduction:
Remembering Our Own Lives Through Alan Jackson’s Songs: A CMA Tribute
Carrie Underwood began with “Remember When,” a fitting choice for an evening honouring Alan Jackson. Before the faster songs arrived, there was space to consider what his music has accompanied: marriages, childhoods, departures, and ordinary afternoons that became precious only after they had passed. At the 56th CMA Awards, his catalogue offered a way of looking back at the lives lived alongside it.
Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Jon Pardi and Lainey Wilson gathered to celebrate Jackson as he received the 2022 CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. Their tribute drew on “Remember When,” “Chattahoochee,” “Drive (For Daddy Gene)” and “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow”—songs that together reveal the emotional range behind his unmistakably country sound.
“Remember When” gave the tribute its reflective beginning. Its subject is the passage of a shared life, including the changes that can seem small while they are happening and enormous when viewed from years away. Underwood’s selection established a tenderness that carried through the celebration: the recognition that a songwriter’s work can become entwined with someone else’s family history.
Then came other versions of remembering. Bentley’s “Chattahoochee” brought the exuberance of youth; Pardi’s “Drive (For Daddy Gene)” turned towards the relationship between a parent and child. Wilson’s “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow” recalled the uncertain beginnings of a musical ambition. Each choice illuminated a different part of Jackson’s storytelling.
What connects these songs is an eye for experiences people recognise. Learning something beside a parent. Finding freedom with friends. Wanting a chance to do the work you love. Jackson gives such experiences enough detail to feel particular, while leaving listeners room to bring their own names, places and memories.
That quality explains the tribute’s deeper appeal. Hearing another generation sing his material makes the years audible. Music once encountered as a new release returns as something inherited, still useful to artists finding their voices and audiences making sense of their lives.
Jackson himself joined the celebration with “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” bringing the evening back to the pleasure of hearing him perform. The honouree could answer the tribute through the music that had brought everyone together.
For viewers returning to this performance, its emotional force may arrive unexpectedly. A song about driving can recall a father’s hands; a song about growing older can bring a long marriage into focus. The award recognises Jackson’s career. The songs reveal what that career has meant beyond the stage.
By the end, the tribute leaves a personal question lingering: which part of your life comes back when you hear Alan Jackson? The answer may be someone you still call, someone you miss, or a younger self you briefly remember with affection.