Music Friday: Luke Combs Ruminates About Diamond Rings and Other Things

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, country music star Luke Combs has diamond rings on his mind as he confronts the cruel fact that everything he loves will ultimately break his heart.

Included on his long list of things that have "torn him apart" are his job, his truck, his dog, his favorite football team and a couple of girlfriends. The only thing he can count on is his favorite frosty libation.

In his 2019 hit "Beer Never Broke My Heart," Combs sings, "Longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart / Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart / Like a neon dream it just don't know me, the bars and this guitar / And longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart."

Written by Combs in collaboration with Randy Montana and Jonathan Singleton, "Beer Never Broke My Heart" became a fan favorite when Combs and his band began playing it on tour in January of 2018. A studio version appeared on Combs' second studio album, What You See Is What You Get, and was released as a single on May 8, 2019.

The song ascended to #2 on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and #1 on the Canada Country chart. The album earned 2X platinum status in the US and topped the album charts in the US, Canada, UK and Australia.

Combs and his band got to perform the song live on both The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in May 2019 and on Saturday Night Live in February 2020.

Luke Albert Combs was born on March 2, 1990, in Huntersville, NC. He demonstrated a love for music at a young age and performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall while attending high school. At Appalachian State University, he worked as a bouncer at a honky-tonk bar and eventually earned stage time to hone his talents.

Just a month before he was set to graduate from college, he dropped out to pursue his dream of becoming a country music star. He released his first EP in 2014, and by 2016 he had been recognized by Sounds Like Nashville as an "artist to watch."

Please check out the video of Combs' Saturday Night Live performance of "Beer Never Broke My Heart." The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along…

"Beer Never Broke My Heart"
Written by Luke Combs, Randy Montana and Jonathan Singleton. Performed by Luke Combs.

I've had a largemouth bass bust my line
A couple of beautiful girls tell me goodbye
Trucks break down, dogs run off
Politicians lie, been fired by the boss

It takes one hand to count the things I can count on
No, there ain't much man that ain't ever let me down

Longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart
Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart
Like a neon dream it just don't know me, the bars and this guitar
And longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart

She was a Carolina blue jean baby
Fire in her eyes that drove me crazy
It was red tail lights when she left town
If I didn't know then, I sure do now

That longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart
Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart
Like a neon dream it just don't know me, the bars and this guitar
A longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart

Now I got one hand to count the things I can count on
But I got one man drippin' down on a cold one

'Cause longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart
Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart
Like a neon dream it just don't know me, the bars and this guitar
A longneck iced cold beer never broke my heart
It never broke my heart.

Credit: Screen capture via Youtube.com/Saturday Night Live.

Set With 423 Diamonds and 1,739 Sapphires, This Necklace Could Sell for 25MM Zlotys

"Julia," an elaborate fractal-inspired necklace set with 423 diamonds and 1,739 sapphires, is expected to sell for 25 million zlotys or more at DESA Unicum's private sale in Poland.

(The zloty is the official currency of Poland. Twenty-five million zlotys is equivalent to about $6.2 million.)

Designed in 2009 by Aussie Marc Newson for the French luxury brand Boucheron, the 18-karat white gold necklace includes more than 125 carats of gemstones and required more than 1,500 hours to complete. The 2.5 carat, E-color, VVS2 diamond at the center of the piece appears to be floating.

Billed as the most expensive piece of jewelry ever offered at auction in Poland, the design's fractal spirals feature a diamond-intensive center that transitions to light blue sapphires and then to dark blue sapphires as the gems radiate outward from the center.

A fractal is a complex geometric pattern that when viewed at any scale repeats elements of the overall pattern. Fractals can be seen in sea shells, fern leaves, sunspots, spiral galaxies and the structure of human lungs.

According to the Warsaw-based auction house, "Julia" is one of the most expensive jewelry pieces ever sold by Boucheron. It even caught the eye of Karl Lagerfeld, who featured it at one of his haute couture shows in Paris.

"Julia" honors French mathematician Gaston Julia, whose work described how fractals are formed.

The necklace had been on public exhibition from October 22 to 26 in a guarded case at the auction house's gallery. The sale of "Julia" will take place under a private sale tender. After the necklace has been inspected by people interested in purchasing it, confidential tenders will be accepted. The last day to make an offer is November 5.

Credits: Images courtesy of DESA Unicum.

Evidence of Ancient Life Found Trapped Inside Greenland Ruby, Say Researchers

Graphite fragments preserved within a Greenland ruby could be evidence of ancient microbial life dating back 2.5 billion years, according to a new study.

The research team, led by Chris Yakymchuk, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, set out to study the geology of rubies to better understand the conditions necessary for ruby formation.

During this research in the North Atlantic Craton of southern Greenland — which contains the oldest known deposits of rubies in the world — the team found a ruby sample that contained graphite, a mineral made of pure carbon. Analysis of this carbon indicated that it is a remnant of early life.

"The graphite inside this ruby is really unique," Yakymchuk said in a statement. "It's the first time we've seen evidence of ancient life in ruby-bearing rocks."

He said that the graphite within the ruby was likely composed of dead microorganisms, such as cyanobacteria.

As reported by Livescience.com, cyanobacteria are thought to be some of the first life on Earth. Scientists believe that over billions of years of converting sunlight into chemical energy, cyanobacteria gradually produced the oxygen necessary for complex life to eventually evolve.

The graphite found in the ruby formed during a time on the planet when oxygen was not abundant in the atmosphere, and life existed only in microorganisms and algae films, Yakymchuk explained.

During this study, Yakymchuk’s team discovered that this graphite not only links the gemstone to ancient life but was also likely necessary for this ruby to exist at all. The graphite changed the chemistry of the surrounding rocks to create favorable conditions for ruby growth. Without it, the team’s models showed that it would not have been possible to form rubies in this location.

"For me personally, it's quite humbling to think about all the things that are encapsulated in this ruby as a reminder of our small part in the long history of planet Earth," Yakymchuk told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Titled "Corundum (ruby) growth during the final assembly of the Archean North Atlantic Craton, southern West Greenland," the study was recently published in Ore Geology Reviews. A companion study, "The corundum conundrum: Constraining the compositions of fluids involved in ruby formation in metamorphic melanges of ultramafic and aluminous rocks," was published in the journal Chemical Geology in June.

Credit: Image courtesy of University of Waterloo.