Tattoos & Scars

Every time I hear Montgomery Gentry's " Tattoos & Scars", I can't help but disagree. Well, I don't think disagree is the right word. I just have a different way of looking at it.

I agree that outer scars from a life of hard work, of war, of providing for your family, is so much more significant than a tattoo that was gotten on a whim.
For example, I knew a girl who had a friend paying for her tattoo & she needed a cheap one. So she settled for "Fuck You" over one ear & "Pay Me" over the other. Just because it was cheap. I'm not usually one to judge, but even I had to gag on that one.
In the song, I feel that's what the young man did. He compared his bad judgement calls to the valiant selflessness & service of his older counterpart.

But I take the song in a very different direction. I think outer scars, no matter how you got them, can't compare to inner scars. To me, for people like me, that's what tattoos are. They are an outer representation of the scars on the inside. I might have visible scars from my years of self-mutilation, but there are so many that are not visible. My tattoos represent my inner scars. My tattoos, and the stories behind them, could tell you more about me than I would ever probably tell you from my own lips. In that generalization, tattoos and scars are not different things. They are one & the same.