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plunk, plunk, twang
Because I believe people should challenge themselves by venturing into little-known turf, I spent the day of New Year’s Eve listening to country music.
By the end of the session I was so depressed I thought I needed to call a hot line. Those ballads ... those mournful violins ... those horrific stories ... I feel sick.
Country music has always been about your cheating heart and daddy’s knee and ol’ 97 trying to get there on time. It’s been about tight-fitting jeans and a woman named Amanda and mamas worrying about sons who don’t want to become doctors and lawyers and such.
County music has always been blue-collar theater. At its core is the ancient battle of good versus evil. It’s been about men whose tools are no better than yours or mine overcoming the odds of failure and heartbreak. The difference in the songs has been how each man handles his adversity.
Maybe you could hear a pin drop when he turned and locked the door. Maybe he’s walking in the rain … trying to forget. Maybe he’s a long-haired country boy and you best leave him alone.
See, they were all just good ol' boys, never meaning no harm.
What we have now are ballads about the man of constant sorrow. My woman went away so I’m going to sit here and drink and wait for the angels. Or my man went away and left me with that old pickup that smells like his boots. Song after song about a southern man who was a farmer like his daddy before him until his woman left him so broke he couldn’t pay attention.
Or the man and the woman singing together about the little kid who wants to do everything his daddy does. The woman resents it because it brings back memories of that loser and the trash-talking, bottle flinging nights. The man thinks it's cool in a redneck culture way.
Country songs used to be about pickups and women and fighting. Now they’re about a small-town, God-fearing man who drinks alone on Saturday nights. His boot-scooting days are behind him. He didn’t know she felt that way until he got home from work one night and found the note pinned to his tackle box.
Wow.
Listen to enough of that stuff and you’ll tote yourself on home and tell your woman she can leave you but she can’t never get rid of you. You’ll want to drive over to your best friend’s house and bust him upside the head for what he’s thinking.
Then tote yourself back to your woman and tell her you know you done her wrong and you want to make it right. Go ahead. Blubber in your beer, you worthless scoundrel. Look at what you’ve gone and one now.
What’s the fun of listening to music such as that? Nobody wins, everybody loses, and ain’t I just a sad ol’ boy.
A week after this country music infliction I decided to clear my head by listening to some classic rock.
What are love lights?
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