United Broke My Guitar - Dave Carroll Turned The Crisis into A Drama

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo[/youtube]Here's an interesting story that's going around the internet. Dave Carroll a country and western singer had his guitar badly damaged while travelling on a United Airlines flight. When he tried to claim the company they refused to listen to his story, gave him a hard time and dismissed his claim as not eligible. Well Dave was so insensed that he wrote a song, put it on YouTube and 11 million hits later United are wishing they had paid up. The moral to all this is beware of a musician scorned. Have a listen its actually a great wee song and no doubt has netted Mr Carroll the price of a few new guitars. Very cleverly the song writer included the brand of his broken guitar in the song. I'm told that Taylor Guitars supplied him with a couple of new instruments. Talking to one of the members of Ashton Lane, a band I'd recommend, Tim one of the members tells me he had a guitar damaged on an Easy Jet Flight, when he complained, the cheque was in the post the next week. The power of Youtube and songwriters. When I heard about this story it reminded me of something that happen to me about 28 years ago. I was not long in the parish just a few years, it must have been 1984 or '85. One evening I had left my old Levin guitar in the boot of the car. An electrical fault flared up in the car and the car went on fire at 2.00am in the morning. The flames were rising up to the roof of the manse. Its fortunate that we live in an old stone house. I was rudely waked up by a young member of the congregation coming home early on a Saturday morning, banging on the manse door informing me that the house was on fire. Well we got out all four of us. The fire brigade arrived put out the fire. My car was a write off and all that was left of the guitar was the fret board and a few burnt out strings. Incidentally, at that time there were one or two people in the congregation, who positively hated the fact that the new minister, or nearly new minister, had a guitar and sometimes used it during worship. I'm told that one lady commented to her friend that the car going on fire was like a judgement from on high. You can imagine I was a bit upset. On the Monday morning I phoned the insurance company to see if our house insurance would cover it - not a chance, it was a musical instrument, it required to be named. I phoned the Church of Scotland Insurance Company,no help or comfort was given. Somewhere along the line of enquiry I realised it was a lost cause. However i thought, who could help? Well,the General Accident Insurance Company were running ads with the slogan " we won't make a drama out of a crisis", so I phoned the branch in Edinburgh. " Now what is your policy number Sir?" I replied, that I didn't have one, but that I noted their advert, and I was facing a crisis. The clerk was very sympathetic but tried to help me understand that you had to pay for a policy before you could claim the company. I thanked the person, put the phone down and wondered where I would get the money to replace the guitar.

About 15 minutes later the phone rang. " is that you Reverend Bogle, we've decided we won't make a drama out of a crisis, there is a cheque in the post for £350.00 to help you buy a new guitar." Its absolutely true General Accident bought me my guitar. I still have it. I bought a factory made Louden for just over £300.00. It sounds absolutely brilliant all these years later and i think may well be worth a bit more. I feel guilty tonight telling this story. I should have written a song in praise of General Accident, however i take comfort from the fact there was no Youtube on those days. This story goes to show that if your persistent enough good things can happen out of bad. Not every Crisis can be turned into a Drama, but somehow I think Dave Carroll is quite pleased the way his Drama has turned out!

United Broke My Guitar - Dave Carroll Turned The Crisis into A Drama

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