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Three Wooden Crosses

"Three Wooden Crosses"
Randy Travis - Three Wooden Crosses single.png
Single by Randy Travis
from the album Rise and Shine
Released November 25, 2002
Format CD single
Genre Country gospel
Length 3:21
Label Word Music/Curb
Writer(s) Kim Williams
Doug Johnson
Producer(s) Kyle Lehning
Randy Travis singles chronology
"America Will Always Stand"
(2001)
"Three Wooden Crosses"
(2002)
"Pray for the Fish"
(2003)

"Three Wooden Crosses" the title of a song written by Kim Williams and Doug Johnson, and recorded by American country music singer-songwriter Randy Travis. It was released in November 2002 from his album, Rise and Shine. The song became Travis' 16th Number One single, his first since "Whisper My Name" in 1994. "Three Wooden Crosses" was named Song of the Year by the Country Music Association in 2003 and won a Dove Award from the Gospel Music Association as Country Song of the Year in 2004.

Throughout the song there is mention of "three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway." This is a dual reference to roadside memorials and to crosses that, in 1984, funded by Reverend Bernard Coffindaffer, began appearing on the sides of highways across the country. These crosses stand in the traditional Christian formation of a tall cross in the middle and two slightly shorter crosses on each side representing the Crucifixion of Jesus.

The song describes four passengers, a farmer on vacation and a teacher seeking higher education, a hooker and a preacher both of whom were "searching for lost souls", on a mid-night bus traveling from the United States to Mexico. The bus is involved in a fatal accident due to the bus driver not seeing a stop sign only to be hit by an 18-wheeler which kills three of the four passengers; the lyrics ask why there are only three crosses and not four.

The song mentions that the farmer and teacher were killed in the wreck, with the farmer leaving a harvest and a son who would follow in his footsteps, and the teacher leaving knowledge in the children she taught. It also mentions that the preacher lays his bloodstained Bible in the hands of the hooker, asking her if she could "see the Promised Land".


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