Music Friday: More Than Three Words and a Diamond Ring, Trisha Yearwood's Love Is a 'Powerful Thing'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you uplifting songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Grammy Award winner Trisha Yearwood tells the story of couple ready to take their relationship to the next level in her 1998 country hit, "Powerful Thing."

Although they started out as "strangers on a two way street" and neither one was looking to fall in love, there's no denying the amazing chemistry between them. The force of the attraction is beyond their control, stronger than a driving wind and hotter than a forest fire. Yearwood believes it's time for them to jump right in and get over their fear of falling.

She sings, "It's a powerful thing / It's a powerful thing / More than three words / And a diamond ring / It can open up the heavens / Make the angels sing / Our love, baby, is a powerful thing."

Written by Al Anderson and Sharon Vaughn, "Powerful Thing" was released as the third single from Yearwood's album Where Your Road Leads. The song ascended to #6 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks and scored the #1 spot on Canada's RPM Country Tracks chart. Billboard critic Deborah Evans Price called the song "perky and playful," pointing to Yearwood's "incredible voice and tons of personality."

"Powerful Thing" also appears as the 14th track of the artist's 2007 album Trisha Yearwood: Greatest Hits.

Patricia Lynn "Trisha" Yearwood was born in 1964 in Monticello, Ga., to a school teacher mom and a banker dad. She got her big break as a 21-year-old when she interned for — and was then hired by — MTM Records, which was founded by the recently departed Mary Tyler Moore. While working for MTM, Yearwood sang background vocals for new artists, including Garth Brooks.

“I got work based on the fact that I showed up on time, I worked cheap, I knew the songs when I got there and I sang on pitch,” Yearwood told People magazine in 2015.

The 52-year-old Yearwood is a member of the Grand Ole Opry and has won three Grammy Awards, three Country Music Association Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards and an American Music Award. She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.

In 2005, she married Brooks, her longtime friend and collaborator. Brooks admitted on Ellen that there had always been an undeniable chemistry between the pair. It was likely "a powerful thing."

Please check out Yearwood's live performance of "Powerful Thing." The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along...

"Powerful Thing"
Written by Al Anderson and Sharon Vaughn. Performed by Trisha Yearwood.

I've never seen two people in my life
More determined to ignore the obvious
We better stop thinking
Let our hearts start doing the talking

You'd have to be stone deaf dumb and blind
Not to see what's going on with us
So let's jump in
And get over our fear of fallin'
'Cause what we got here

Is a powerful thing
It's a powerful thing
More than three words
And a diamond ring
It can open up the heavens
Make the angels sing
Our love, baby, is a powerful thing

We started out strangers on a two-way street
Neither one of us lookin' to fall in love
But we don't need us a map
To know we're headed in that direction

Well, it's out of our hands
And over our heads
It's something that's bigger than both of us
Turnin' back now's completely out of the question
'Cause what we got here

Is a powerful thing
It's a powerful thing
More than three words
And a diamond ring
It can open up the heavens
Make the angels sing
Our love, baby, is a powerful thing

Stronger than the force of a driving wind
Hotter than a forest fire
There never has been and there never will be
Nothing like the power of you and me, yeah

It's a powerful thing
It's a powerful thing
More than three words
And a diamond ring
It can open up the heavens
Make the angels sing
Our love, baby, is a powerful thing

It's a powerful thing
It's a powerful thing
More than three words
And a diamond ring
It can open up the heavens
Make the angels sing
Our love, baby, is a powerful thing

Credit: Screen capture via YouTube.com.

The Empress of Uruguay Is a Majestic 11-Foot-Tall, 2.5-Ton Example of February's Birthstone

Standing majestically at nearly 11 feet tall and weighing the same as a Cadillac Escalade, The Empress of Uruguay is billed as the world's largest amethyst geode.

The exposed interior radiates with tens of thousands of deep purple, gem-quality amethyst crystals and is the top attraction at the Crystal Caves Museum in Atherton, Australia.

Amethyst is the official birthstone for February babies, and there is no example of the gem more impressive than this 5,500-pound geode.

The Empress of Uruguay was discovered in the Artigas region in northern Uruguay, a mining area famous for yielding some of the world's finest-quality amethysts.

Crystal Caves Museum founders René and Nelleke Boissevain purchased the geode for $75,000 in 2007 and paid an additional $25,000 to transport it to Queensland on Australia's northeastern coast.

Moving a massive geode 9,100 miles across land and sea was no easy task. The Empress of Uruguay had to be packed into a custom crate at the mine in Uruguay and then secured in a steel container for its sea voyage from Brazil to Brisbane.

Two large cranes were used to place the geode in its current position in the Empress Room at the Crystal Caves Museum.

Visitors are encouraged to touch, feel and take photographs of The Empress of Uruguay. Often they can hardly believe the geode is real and wonder if the seemingly perfect crystals have been enhanced or altered in any way. The answer is that they are completely natural.

The museum's Q&A page on its official website explains that the original geode traveled to Queensland completely intact. A section of the face was carefully removed to reveal the beautiful crystal structure inside. In addition, the museum staff smoothed some rough exposed edges and added a coat of black paint to the back of the geode, presumably to keep light from coming through.

The museum has reportedly received offers to buy The Empress of Uruguay for as much as 250,000 Australian dollars (about $190,000), but the geode is not for sale.

The Crystal Caves Museum is located just an hour from the Cairns International Airport on the beautiful Atherton Tablelands. The Empress of Uruguay is the largest of a spectacular mineralogical collection that includes more than 600 specimens.

Credits: Images via www.crystalcaves.com.au. Map by Googlemaps.com.

NYC Man Gets Wedding Band Back One Week After Watching It Roll Through a Sidewalk Grate

A New York City man, who helplessly watched as his beloved gold wedding band fell off his finger and rolled in "slow-motion" through a sidewalk grate, got it back one week later with the help of a NYC utility company.

There are 39,000 sidewalk grates citywide and each one can strike fear into the heart of an average pedestrian. Unlike Marilyn Monroe, who famously stood on a sidewalk grate in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch and relished the rush of air as a subway passed below, many people avoid the metal grates for fear of snapping off a heel or accidentally dropping something valuable into the abyss below. Some grates cover recesses 10 or 15 feet deep, while others conceal voids that can go down some eight stories.

Wallace Collins wasn't worrying about the grates when he headed out on errands and then to a lunch meeting near his apartment on East 39th Street and 2nd Avenue recently. The businessman was distracted and juggling papers when his wedding band slipped off his finger, bounced on the sidewalk and rolled toward a sidewalk grate.

"I was thinking three blocks ahead to where I had to be and I guess I was fiddling around with the papers I had in my hand, thinking 'Does the mail come first, or the bank on the corner? I gotta put that slip on top,'" Collins told NBC 4 New York.

Collins described how the tragic scene played out...

"It rolled along the sidewalk and it was kind of like a slow-motion," he told NBC 4 New York.

He also recalled recognizing the precious jewelry heading toward the grate and saying to himself, "Wait, that's my ring!"

Collins made a headlong dive to save the ring, but it found a gap in the grate and landed about 15 feet below.

"For a split-second I thought, 'Oh I can get it,' and then it fell through," he said.

Collins told his story to a doorman of the nearby building and then to a police officer. They suggested he call 311, which is a phone number many cities support for non-emergency issues. That didn't work, so the next step was to call Con Edison, the utility provider.

A Con Ed customer service rep told Collins that she couldn't send out a crew right away because his situation wasn't an emergency. She did, however, promise to "get to it when we can."

Day after day, Collins would pass over the grate and peer down to make sure the ring was still there.

"I knew it was safe where it was until someone came to get it," he said.

Finally, last Wednesday, a week after his call to Con Ed, a team from the utility was sent to rescue the ring. On hand to witness the operation was Collins, who can be seen pointing to the spot where he knew the ring to be.

A few minutes after flipping open the grate and heading down with a ladder, a Con Ed worker emerged with the ring and handed it to Collins.

"Whoa, there we go!" exclaimed Collins. "Back where it belongs."

Collins slipped the ring back on his finger and modeled it for the NBC 4 New York camera.

He thanked the Con Edison workers and promised to be more careful in the future — especially while walking over New York City's sidewalk grates.

"I'll always be paranoid about it now," he told NBC 4 New York.

Source: Screen captures via nbcnewyork.com.