Mourning the Loss of John David Souther

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this morning I woke up to bad news. One of my friends, JD Souther, also known as John David Souther, a great singer, songwriter, and an actor to boot, passed away yesterday in New Mexico at the age of 78.

JD wrote a lot of songs that the Eagles did and that Linda Ronstadt covered, and he performed some of them too. He did ``New Kid in Town.'' When I was elected to Congress, he came to Memphis with Jackson Browne to do what I considered probably the greatest fundraiser in history. It was a small house with a living room that had a little area above it, and the two of them did an hour concert for the few people they could cram into that living room.

JD sang ``New Kid in Town'' about me saying that I am going to be the new kid in town in Congress and great expectations are thought of me. I think about that a lot.

When I got elected, JD called me, and he said: Steve, you are going to the show.

Well, the show is major league parlance for going to the major leagues, and we were both baseball fans.

He was just a great guy. He was smart as hell. He is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He had a great voice and was so respected by musicians.

I kind of got him from Warren Zevon. He was my pal, and Warren kind of willed him to me.

Warren was dying, and he said: Steve, I have got a friend who is moving to Nashville, and you all should be friends.

When I met him in Nashville, he said: I need to get something out of this, and I want to get married. Can you marry me?

I could do marriages, and I married him at Burt Stein's house. Rodney Crowell was the only witness. The marriage didn't take, but I did the best job I could.

JD was my friend and a great American songwriter. He will be missed.

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