In Defence of Country Music
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It is all too easy to make generalisation about any given genre of music, and Country Music certain is no different. When most people think of country music their heads are filled with images of pickup trucks, cowboy hats, and maybe a guitar or two. It doesn’t pretend to be what it isn’t. Every country singer knows that the chances are, their music will be played through the stereo of a man who owns more guns than the army of the average medium sized nation, is uncomfortably close to his sister, and is likely to say something more than a little dodgy about “Southern heritage”.
But what many don’t think about is all the great stuff Country Music has given to us. Thanks to Country Music we have such wonderful things as Dolly Parton who, besides being the Southern grandma to the entire planet, is also a brilliant singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and all around Queen of Country Music. Country music has also spawned such jems as the casual alcoholic's anthem “Five o’clock Somewhere” and the Jeremy Kyle Show in song form: “My Son calls Another man Daddy”. Plus who could forget Shania Twain’s outfit made entirely out of leopard print. But to move away from the jokes for a moment, clearly excluding Dolly Parton (she is a goddess that folds her wings to walk among us and I will fight any man, woman, or child who argues the opposite), Country Music is so much more than a collection of stereotypes.
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It’s clearly a bit of fun. Country is the kind of music that both you and your nan can sing along to at a family wedding and not be judged for it; I mean who doesn’t love drunkenly belting out “Islands in the Stream” or “Still the One”? It can even be poetic. Songs like Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” or Townes Van Zandt’s (who I’ve written about before on this blog) “I’ll be here in the Morning” show that there is a much more thoughtful and gentle side to the genre. Also not to over do the whole Dolly Parton thing but if you don’t think that “I will Always Love You” (which she wrote on the same day as Jolene) is a beautiful song then you are past helping. Just because a fair chunk of the stuff played on country radio stations is about truckin’, doesn’t mean all Country Music is the same.
Country has certainly had its low moments: it has often been a bastion of conservative and out of date ideas; it was used by Richard Nixon to appeal to his “Silent Majority” in the South, which was clearly a veiled attempt to promote right-wing and sometimes racist ideas; Merle Haggard also famously rejected the counterculture movements of the late 60s and 70s; not to mention it helped create whatever Billy Ray-Cyrus is.
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But this hasn’t always been the case, especially now that country is reaching a little more into the mainstream. Artists like Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift have “broken out” of Nashville and don’t mind challenging the often conservative norms of the genre. Kacey Musgraves, for instance, has combined having a liberal and modern outlook with making genuinely brilliant pop-country. Even decades ago there were challenges to these right-leaning ideas. The Dixie Chicks were outspoken against the War in Iraq, saying that they were ‘ashamed’ George W. Bush was ‘from Texas’ and the singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter even wrote a feminist anthem, called “He Thinks he’ll Keep Her”, about an under appreciated housewife.
If you’re a fan of the Luke Bryan brand of country, then fair enough but if you think every little bit of country is the same then think again. There is so much more to Country Music than cowboy hats, shit beer, and American flags; sometimes it’s a little deeper. Why not give it a listen?
Also, Dolly Parton.