If you were at CoxHealth's employee recognition banquet a couple of weeks ago, you no doubt heard about Priscilla Curbow’s non-traditional retirement plan: sell one of her songs to country music star Toby Keith.
This was mentioned in passing during her recognition and it’s the kind of thing that demands a few follow-up questions. We caught up with Priscilla, who works in CoxHealth’s Communications department, and asked about her burgeoning songwriting career.
Her first question to us was, “Do you know how to get in touch with Toby Keith? I know he lives in Oklahoma.”
“He’s never there, though, or I’d stalk him out,” she says with a laugh. “You’d hear on the news about this ol’ grandma stalking Toby Keith.”
If she could get in touch with Mr. Keith, Priscilla says she has an ending to a song called “Brand New Bow,” a deep cut on his “White Trash With Money” album from 2006.
If you haven’t heard it, the song centers on a double-entendre-prone narrator, who is a few months late in calling up an old girlfriend to wish her a happy birthday. He tells her that he may not have the funds for a ring, but perhaps they could put a new bow on “the same old thing” - “you can guess what he means,” Priscilla says.
As the song fades out, Keith says over a guitar harmony: “It’d be cool if we could make an ending for it.”
Priscilla, who writes poetry in her spare time and has penned a few songs in the past, believes she has the perfect ending. It’s two verses that are a cleverly worded rebuttal from the girlfriend, who has heard all of this before and, frankly, she ain’t going for it. The lines would sound especially good if sung by, say, a Gretchen Wilson-type.
Priscilla keeps the complete contents of her verses confidential - unless you’re a Nashville agent - but we’ve heard them off the record and they’re indeed a good fit for the song. Now, all she needs is a chance to get in the right hands. So, if any of us run across Mr. Keith, perhaps in a honky-tonk with Willie Nelson, we should keep Priscilla’s number handy.
“I always keep a copy of it on me,” she says. “You just never know!”
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