Lindy Boone, Daughter of Legend Pat Boone, Debuts Inspiring New Song “Wordlayer” — Watch the EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE!
Plus, how her son's life-changing accident inspired the song and strengthened her faith
The Bible says the power of life and death is in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and that scripture is particularly meaningful to Lindy Boone (Michaelis). In fact, it’s the foundation of her powerful new song, “Wordlayer” that is being released today. The music video for the new song — which she is sharing exclusively with Woman’s World readers here first — features Lindy and her sisters Debby, Laury and Cherry with an appearance by their father, Pat Boone.
“The teaching of the power of words is part of my Christian faith and I’ve heard it from the pulpit a lot of times,” Lindy tells Woman’s World in an exclusive interview. “But it got tested dramatically when my son Ryan had his accident.”
Lindy Boone remembers a life-changing fall
Lindy’ son, Ryan Corbin and a friend had gone up on the roof of their apartment building to sit in the sunshine when he fell through the skylight and down three stories.
He sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and was not expected to survive. Yet through the power of prayer, Ryan pulled through and is living today with his parents in California. He is in a wheelchair and requires constant care, but the whole family is grateful to still have him so many years later. Lindy kept a journal throughout the experience, which turned into the book Heaven Hears.
The Boone family also established a non-profit organization called Ryan’s Reach that created two licensed homes in Orange County, CA to provide therapy and financial assistance for families who have loved ones dealing with TBIs.
“Ryan’s fall was a life-threatening, life-changing experience for all of us, and I had to really cling to my faith and re-evaluate my faith,” Lindy tells WW. She also recently started a podcast called TBI Talk, where she shares her insights on brain injury recovery from the perspective of a mom who has seen her son come back from the brink of death to lead a life that is not typical but still fulfilling.
“I was being instructed from a spiritual standpoint to speak words of hope, speak healing and share the things that I had the benefit of learning in life,” she says. “But I had never been tested because my life was charmed up to that point. Ryan’s accident is where I divide my life — before his accident and after his accident.”
In addition to supplying assistance through the two homes provided by Ryan’s Reach, and emotional encouragement through her podcast, Lindy further shares her journey with “Wordlayer” — the first song she’s ever written.
Though she toured extensively in the 1970s with her siblings and her parents, Pat and Shirley, as The Boone Family, Lindy had never written a song until she received a very special gift from her daughter.
A daughter’s gift ignites a songwriting passion
“During COVID, she gave me a gift for Mother’s Day and she said, ‘Mom everything is closed right now, so I bought you the experience of writing a song with a Nashville musician over Zoom.’ That was her gift to me,” Lindy says of the songwriting session with Nashville tunesmith Anne Buckle.
“I thought, ‘This is wonderful, but what in the world am I going to contribute to this Zoom call with this Nashville musician?’ Then after a prayer time I said, ‘Lord, can you give me an idea, so I’m not just letting her do the whole song by herself?’ Wordlayer popped into my mind, and I thought, ‘That sounds like a title!’ I started to write what it meant to me and it came out as lyrics.”
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Even though it was her first time writing a song, Lindy had already been using the term “wordlayer” for years. “When my book came out in 2013, I was instructed to get a Twitter account and I had to create a user name,” she recalls. “I used the name ‘Wordlayer’ because it was what I had been doing, laying my words out throughout the process. It changes you from the inside out when you are speaking intentionally and not just throwing out your grief and negativity, but speaking the next chapter of your life: It’s going to be good and we’re going to be overcomers.”
Lindy says co-writing the song with Anne was such a wonderful experience. “She is related to June Carter and so she comes from the Carter Family. Her grandmother was June Carter’s sister and we had this nice chat, mostly about being from a musical family and our lineage,” says Lindy, who is the second of Pat and Shirley’s four daughters. “My family came from Nashville and Anne is living in Nashville, so we had this wonderful connection. When she read my lyric and she goes, ‘Lindy, I’d be happy to write the melody, but this lyric is done.’ So she wrote a beautiful melody while we were on the Zoom call. Then she hung up, recorded it with her guitar into her phone and sent it to me.”
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From there, Anne went in the studio, added harmonies and further instrumentation and created a proper demo of the song to give Lindy. “I was so grateful. She did that on her own and then I was able to play it for people,” Lindy shares. “It just gratified me to have written a song. I’d never written a song before. To me, it’s just part of the miracle I’ve been walking for years, and years and people can hear it.”
When Lindy played it for her dad and Dana McElwain, who runs Pat’s Gold Label Records, they urged her to record the song and release it to the public. “We recorded it in November and my sisters all agreed to come and sing the beautiful harmonies,” says Lindy, who previously recorded with her sisters as The Boone Girls. “I’m just so honored that we were able to turn this little gift from my daughter into this song.”
Lindy hasn’t been in the music industry for a long time. She and her sisters disbanded their group while they were still in there 20s. For the last 25 years, she has been a fitness instructor and personal trainer in California and has also been taking care of Ryan. Married to Michael Michaelis, she has three adult children, Ryan, Jessica and Tyler.
But filming the video with her siblings is an experience she’ll always treasure. “There was something so special in the air. My husband was there. He’d never seen us record before and he had tears welling up,” she says. “Laury’s husband was there and he’d never been in that environment before, but we grew up singing together since we were young and it is such a wonderful thing to sing as a family. We just love our harmony and the way we sound together. Then when Daddy wandered in and heard it, he just had a tissue from the get-go for the song and also just to hear us sing again. It’s been a while.”
Lindy isn’t ruling out the possibility of a full album release in the future and she’s already writing more songs. “I didn’t know I could write songs, but they come out of a personal place in my heart and then they won’t let me go,” she says. “There’s a song that I’m working on called ‘It’s Not a Wasted Life.’ That’s something my son Ryan said in prayer one night.”
Lindy continues, “He goes, ‘It’s not a wasted life,’ and I thought, ‘No it isn’t. His life is so important and so meaningful.’ He’s still in a wheelchair. He still has the brain injury. It’s been 22 years since his accident and he has lived with us all this time with a caregiver 24/7, but his life is making a difference. It makes a difference through ripple effects. We started the non-profit because of what we’ve gone through and sometimes when you suffer, you understand the suffering of others like you never had before.”
Lindy Boone journeys towards joy
It’s been a long journey, but Lindy is grateful for where they are today. “Ryan isn’t walking like I’d like him to, but we have his voice back,” she shares. “We have his appetite back. We have laughter. He puts his arms around me every day and says, ‘I love you.’ We have joy. We’ve got the kisses back. I’m so grateful and I’m focused on what’s returned. I’m not focused on what’s still missing.
That’s what I encourage people to do — to the extent that you can — say, ‘I am grateful for this.’ Write it down and practice that gratitude and continue to love and bring words of life and healing and beauty into the rooms with the people that have endured trauma. Trust God with the situation and with the outcomes. I believe that with my whole heart — when you trust God, the outcome will always be beautiful.”
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