Roy: I want to thank you for playing a song I had never heard, by an artist I never knew existed, and by doing so, starting my day off just about right.
Todd Snider's "The Ballad of the Kingsmen" made me think of what radio could be, but isn't, and probably never was, at least not in my memory. A song about words that we think we understand, but don't understand. A song that shows us that we fall into a trap of believing that those misunderstood words shape our beliefs and our actions and our world, when the reality is that the words, and the meaning of the words is the outcome, not the input.
It isn't rock, or country, or thrash metal, or hip-hop, or rap that shapes our world. The reality seems to be that it is our world that shapes our actions, our actions that shape our beliefs, and our beliefs that shape our words and the words of others.  I suspect that each of us at one time or another has blamed some problem on the words without understanding the context, the meaning (or the lack of meaning), behind those words.
There are plenty of folks that could benefit from listening to, and understanding, "The Ballad of the Kingsman." Understand that it is a song about the power of words, whether spoken, sung, printed, or shouted from the podium. Words tell the story of life, love, conflict, peace, hope.  It isn't that our existence is derived from our words, but that our words spring from our experiences in life.
To Todd Snider: for a certain group of us, who think we know the words, your song is beautiful and humbling reminder of all those words that we don't really know or undertand.