The Pax Plena Song of the Week reminds me of a steamy New Hampshire summer, and Fourth-of-Julys past spent along the Charles River in Boston. Released in 2003, Brad Paisley’s Make a Mistake was an instant favorite of mine the momenet I heard its ornate guitar work, and upbeat lyrics, lo so many years ago.

The tune is simple and easily sung, like most Brad Paisley tunes. But in many ways it’s exactly this simplicity of country music that makes it at all interesting.

Rant: Let’s face it, if you want to listen to generic pop music all you need to do is pirate the latest Justin Bieber album, or the musical excrement we call Lady Gaga. I say ‘pirate’ because if your music taste is poor enough to actually pay for it, well, I can’t help you and your head will probably explode once you click video below and listen to real music. Suffice it to say, given how country music is the veritable, polar opposite of everything “pop” and generic, it’s little surprise that yours truly gravitates towards it – not unlike Charlie Sheen gravitating toward a train wreck. Moths to a flame, as they say.

Anyway, the lyrics of the tune tell a simple story of a boy urging a girl he likes to “make a mistake” with him. It’s a bit cliché admittedly, but so is a lot of what we enjoy about relationships. We’ve all seen the movie where the lovelorn girl tells her beau their romance cannot be because it would surely be a mistake. Paisley’s song is the beau’s rebuttal.

Rescuing the song, perhaps from itself, is Paisley’s nothing less than amazing handiwork on the guitar. The strumming and picking on both the melody and the chorus are stellar. Until hearing this song, I honestly did not comprehend how fast the human finger can move. I thought my 10-words-per-minute typing was impressive.

At any rate, there’s only so much that I can say on behalf of a song that is eminently qualified to speak for itself. With that, please enjoy the extended edition of Make a Mistake, featuring an extra three minutes of Brad Paisley making the guitar his bitch.

Make a Mistake
By Brad Paisley

You over think things
You say what if we’re not meant to be
Well you know what so what
Make a mistake with me

Nobody goes through this life and does
Everything perfectly
We’re all gonna fail so you might as well
Make a mistake with me

Sometimes baby when we take
A chance that has this much at stake
We look back and in hindsight
What seemed wrong looks more like right

So I say worst case we’ll be left with
Lots of good memories
This chance we have well it’s worth that 
So make a mistake with me

I’m tellin’ you the right thing to do
Is make a mistake
Make a mistake
Make a mistake with me