R. Mack Harrell is a surgeon by day, but he might want to quit his day job for a music career after the reaction he is getting from his ballad about the Gulf oil disaster.
"Oil and Water," the simple and appropriate title of the song, is among five finalists in a nationwide competition to determine who could make the best song about the feelings after the BP well sent millions of gallons of crude into the ocean.
Hear the song here and vote for it. The voting goes until midnight Sunday and a winner will be announced Monday.
Harrell, who works for Imperial Point Hospital, said he used to travel to the Panhandle as a boy on vacation and that's where some of the inspiration for the song came from.
"I thought this song was both poignant and beautiful. The simple, soulful melody reminded me of a hymn, and the dignified lyric gave the melody stature," said famous singer-songwriter Craig Bickhardt, who is judging the competition for USA Today. "In the tradition of Nashville-style songs, the hook is used cleverly, particularly the verse about how politics and tragedy mix as impossibly as oil and water. I think there's a lot of polished songcraft in this, yet it's full of emotion, too."
It took Harrell two weeks to compose the song, he told the Sun-Sentinel, and he enlisted the help of a friend to sing it for him.
The song talks about the idle shrimp boats in the Gulf and the President's visit to Florida after the disaster, which brought about one of the best lines in the song.
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"The blame game's getting hotter. Tragedy and politics they mix like oil and water."
