If Apples or Books Were Country Songs

[Coqui]

OK, so I've been so inspired by J-Rod's apple blog and his book blog that I have decided to follow in his footsteps. So I'm starting a. . . wait for it. . . country music song review blog. Why? (I'll wait until the laughter/disbelief subsides to answer.)

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I like country music, and I listen to it. I'm neither erudite enough to write a book blog, nor crunchy enough to write an apple blog, although I like both apples and books, and thoroughly enjoy both blogs. So PEBA members get a country music blog. This is something that I have been thinking about for a while (that and a solo league recap that I 'm still considering). And as I sit here washing dishes and listening to my Pandora shuffle early on a Christmas Eve morning while waiting up for my wife to finish last minute Christmas shopping (and on my second glass of red wine, I might add, which is probably very relevant), I am inspired to start this blog that I have started to start a hundred times. Maybe no one will care, and maybe no one will read it. But really, if the internet stands for anything, it's for being able to talk to yourself about random stuff, whether anyone listens/reads or not.

What are my qualifications for authoring such a blog?

1) I am a former country music DJ. I actually spent more time hosting a Saturday morning call-in "tradio" show, running the board for Cardinal baseball, and putting together local news broadcasts, but whatever.

2) I listen to a lot of country music: Pandora in the office and on my iPhone while washing dishes, FM radio on the way to/from work, sometimes country oldies AM radio at work, and (and this is the most embarrassing entry) having the local DTV country music video station on in the background sometimes while I fold clothes.

3) I appreciate the breadth and depth of country music. (Yes, I'll wait while you laugh about that last sentence. Go ahead. I get it. Done? OK, let's proceed.) I consider country music one of the few truly American art forms. Yes, there are some foreign influences (Irish/Celtic, mostly), but generally speaking the rural American pastiche of poverty, farming, God, and lack of the variety of urban distraction makes for an interesting and very American form of music. [INSERT OBLIGATORY "I like both kinds of music, country and western" joke HERE]

What are my prejudices?

1) I like bluegrass.

2) I like the Western / Bakersfield sound.

3) I like Southern Rock.

4) I like the old stuff. For instance, I am more likely to listen to Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers than I am today's current country stars (although I listen to today's stars, too, and like several of them, particularly those who have some old school chops).

4) I have a healthy distrust for pop's influence of country, yet still respect Taylor Swift (go figure, and by the way, here's my man card) and Hootie minus the Blowfish.

5) As the father of five young children, I have a prejudice against songs that are not wholesome, but a weakness for them, too.

6) Having grown up in perhaps one of the most rural settings in America this side of the Appalachia of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, I have a real soft spot for songs that touch on life in rural America.

And finally, I should mention one caveat: bI have very few musical abilities myself. I grew up in a religious tradition that sang and valued a cappella music, and was a moderately decent singer as a kid, but have since ruined my singing voice through a mix of overuse/misuse and neglect. I have no formal music training and cannot play any instrument (although I have a son who is on his way to being a very accomplished classical guitarist, and also being a talented pianist, and maybe a younger son for whom early returns are promising).

So there you have it. I plan to review random songs, one at a time, give my opinion, and maybe inform about the history of country music. Or maybe just be a crank. We'll see.

For my first mini-review, I'm actually going to link a song that I don't consider to be a particularly notable country song, Trace Adkins' Songs About Me. It's not notable, except for its lyrics, which sum up why I like country music, and think that it is a suitable topic for a blog.

Mock if you must, ignore if you prefer. Neither will hurt my feelings, as this foray into "blogging" is a grand experiment that I may have neither the time nor the patience to pursue aggressively. I hope that you can enjoy reading my sporadic posts, listen to some country songs with a critical ear, and maybe learn something about America or rural life in the process.

[Apollos]

Very cool! Being a VA boy myself, I can certainly appreciate your tastes - especially for good bluegrass! Can't wait to read the blog and see what you've got swirling around in your head there. If you're ever in need of some decent songs for additional material, feel free to give me a shout.

[Tyler]

I actually grew up listening to country music, so I have a huge soft spot for anything that was on the air in the 90s. I consider my musical tastes to have heavily evolved since then and now only consider country music a guilty pleasure, but I'll definitely be reading and interested to hear the take of someone passionate about the subject.

[John]

This is the kind of thing I want to see more of. We've got a lot of diverse topics going on here in the off-topic forum, but these discussions are generally started by a handful of the same forum members, and thus they tend to revolve around similar subjects. I very much want to see new topics being discussed here. It's never going to be me that starts a country music-themed off-topic thread because I know nothing of country music. I presume the same is true for our other regular off-topic posters. We're going to be posting what we know, and we are simply ignorant on the subject of country music.

But just speaking for myself here, do not confuse ignorance with lack of interest. Frankly, the entire reason I keep checking these off-topic forums is that I want to be exposed to things I know nothing about. I don't want to keep running in the same circles that I'm used to - I want people to challenge me, shake things up and teach me about new things. Honestly, you should want that for yourself, too.

So don't look at the title of this thread, think, "I don't like country music," and tune out. Give something new a try, and give feedback to someone who is obviously putting a lot of thought and time into this thread. I challenged myself to click the Songs About Me song link that James provided, and guess what? I kinda dug it! Now if you had asked me at the start of the day whether I would have liked a country music song, I would have told you, "No way." Because James took the time to post this, my answer has now changed. That's what this forum is all about.

I'm looking forward to more on this subject, James! Don't let it lie... I'll be following with interest.

[Akira]

I'll be reading, too. As a transplanted New Yorker here in Texas I could use some pointers as to what's good country music and not, both old and new. I do know George Strait is a must. I hope to be quoting your blog so as to surprise and impress my local friends.

[Ghosts]

2) I like the Western / Bakersfield sound.

It's a little (or completely unknown) fact that the origin of the Bears was that I was listening to Buck Owens sing The Streets of Bakersfield, one of my all-time favorites, when I was trying to decide ... and, history was made.

My first real introduction to country music was at the 1990 Stark County (Canton!) County Fair and a barely known guy named Garth Brooks was playing the pavilion -- for free! He was was awesome enough, but at the end of the show he said -- and I am not making this up -- "here's a new song from my album that's coming out, it's called 'Friends in Low Places.'" The audience, all 400 or so, went completely bonkers for the song and 2 months later he was a super-star.

Though I have to say, I am very much partial to the old stuff -- Merel Haggerd, especially -- and mostly stick to that or the Alternative Country scene.

I can tell you where I was in 1993 when I first heard Uncle Tupelo (Jeff Tweedy of Wilco's first band) play Graveyard Shift. It about blew me away. These guys came from nowhere -- Belleville, Illinois -- and just basically invented a new type of music. Part Clash / Part Cash they used to say. The whole scene came and went (and I was lucky enough to be in Chicago, it's epicenter since the mid-1990s, headquartered at The Hideout, still the best bar ever), so I got to see a lot of it.

My favorites:

Freakwater, anything by Freakwater. Louisville, KY's finest - their Cloak of Frongs is so, so right.

Neko Case - the sweatheart of alt country - is the coolest ever. I dare you, natives of small industrial towns (like Canton) to listen to this song and not cry: Thrice All American.

Palace Brothers (and anything else -- Palace Music, Palace, Bonny Prince Billy) featuring Will Oldham, also of Louisville (and who played the kid preacher in John Sayles classic tale of Union coal miners, Matewan). No More Workhorse Blues is about as good as it gets.

Incidentally, if Mr. Oldham intrigues you, he is a man of many talents. Check him out with Zac Gallifanakis in the alternative (but from what I understand entirely licensed) video for Kanye West's Can't Tell me Nothing.

[Coqui]

I've been a bit remiss in updating this infant blog, as real life has intruded in several unkind ways. I have several blog posts lined up (in my mind at least), to respond to requests (both explicit and implicit) for info on Texas' influence on country music (upthread), country protest songs, and other assorted stuff.

In the meantime, enjoy this article by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) about one of the fathers of bluegrass, which is one of the great pre-cursors and continuing influencers of country music (and probably my favorite country music-influencing genre).

If you haven't heard, over the years Martin has become a truly world-class banjo player, and, as the article linked above indicates, one who respects the tradition of bluegrass music in general and banjo playing in particular. He may be the only person on earth who has won a Grammy for both comedy and music for separate albums. The International Bluegrass Music Association's 2011 Entertainer of the Year, Martin is a true bluegrass treasure, like Earl Scruggs, his musical forefather.

Want to see his comedic and musical talent together in one song (well, mostly comedic, as he doesn't play the banjo in this "hymn")? You're welcome.

[Maulers]

2) I like the Western / Bakersfield sound.

It's a little (or completely unknown) fact that the origin of the Bears was that I was listening to Buck Owens sing The Streets of Bakersfield, one of my all-time favorites, when I was trying to decide ... and, history was made.

My first real introduction to country music was at the 1990 Stark County (Canton!) County Fair and a barely known guy named Garth Brooks was playing the pavilion -- for free! He was was awesome enough, but at the end of the show he said -- and I am not making this up -- "here's a new song from my album that's coming out, it's called 'Friends in Low Places.'" The audience, all 400 or so, went completely bonkers for the song and 2 months later he was a super-star.

Though I have to say, I am very much partial to the old stuff -- Merel Haggerd, especially -- and mostly stick to that or the Alternative Country scene.

I can tell you where I was in 1993 when I first heard Uncle Tupelo (Jeff Tweedy of Wilco's first band) play Graveyard Shift. It about blew me away. These guys came from nowhere -- Belleville, Illinois -- and just basically invented a new type of music. Part Clash / Part Cash they used to say. The whole scene came and went (and I was lucky enough to be in Chicago, it's epicenter since the mid-1990s, headquartered at The Hideout, still the best bar ever), so I got to see a lot of it.

My favorites:

Freakwater, anything by Freakwater. Louisville, KY's finest - their Cloak of Frongs is so, so right.

Neko Case - the sweatheart of alt country - is the coolest ever. I dare you, natives of small industrial towns (like Canton) to listen to this song and not cry: Thrice All American.

Palace Brothers (and anything else -- Palace Music, Palace, Bonny Prince Billy) featuring Will Oldham, also of Louisville (and who played the kid preacher in John Sayles classic tale of Union coal miners, Matewan). No More Workhorse Blues is about as good as it gets.

Incidentally, if Mr. Oldham intrigues you, he is a man of many talents. Check him out with Zac Gallifanakis in the alternative (but from what I understand entirely licensed) video for Kanye West's Can't Tell me Nothing.

I agree with almost everything in this post, especially the alt.country and Neko Case love.

I'll admit to being a relatively late comer to country/rural/americana music. I blame this on my mother, who would react violently any time that my father played any music in which there was the slightest bit of twang in the vocal. I thus literally never heard any country music (other than the pop crossover stuff) until I went to college. Some of faves:
Steve Earle
Emmylou Harris
Johnny Cash (obviously)
Willie Nelson (obviously)
Uncle Tupelo
Son Volt
Richard Buckner
Neko Case (already mentioned)
Shannon McNally - especially this devastating song - "Pale Moon"

[Coqui]

OK, I have let this lie long enough, but I'm going to blame a couple of commenters, who brought up some entertainers of whom I had either never heard, or whose work I had never really explored in detail. So in this post, I am going to respond briefly to some of the suggestions

I can tell you where I was in 1993 when I first heard Uncle Tupelo (Jeff Tweedy of Wilco's first band) play Graveyard Shift. It about blew me away. These guys came from nowhere -- Belleville, Illinois -- and just basically invented a new type of music. Part Clash / Part Cash they used to say. The whole scene came and went (and I was lucky enough to be in Chicago, it's epicenter since the mid-1990s, headquartered at The Hideout, still the best bar ever), so I got to see a lot of it.

My favorites:

Freakwater, anything by Freakwater. Louisville, KY's finest - their Cloak of Frongs is so, so right.

Neko Case - the sweatheart of alt country - is the coolest ever. I dare you, natives of small industrial towns (like Canton) to listen to this song and not cry: Thrice All American.

Palace Brothers (and anything else -- Palace Music, Palace, Bonny Prince Billy) featuring Will Oldham, also of Louisville (and who played the kid preacher in John Sayles classic tale of Union coal miners, Matewan). No More Workhorse Blues is about as good as it gets.

Incidentally, if Mr. Oldham intrigues you, he is a man of many talents. Check him out with Zac Gallifanakis in the alternative (but from what I understand entirely licensed) video for Kanye West's Can't Tell me Nothing.

I'll admit to being a relatively late comer to country/rural/americana music. I blame this on my mother, who would react violently any time that my father played any music in which there was the slightest bit of twang in the vocal. I thus literally never heard any country music (other than the pop crossover stuff) until I went to college. Some of faves:
Steve Earle
Emmylou Harris
Johnny Cash (obviously)
Willie Nelson (obviously)
Uncle Tupelo
Son Volt
Richard Buckner
Neko Case (already mentioned)
Shannon McNally - especially this devastating song - "Pale Moon"

So a lot to explore or in most cases re-explore, here. You guys convinced me to give Neko Case another try. She definitely has some great country songs, mostly covers, but I'm just not that into her. Her cover of Wayfaring Stranger is one of the best versions of that song that I have ever heard, FWIW. Anyway, I know that she is supposed to be alt.country, but I'm just not buying it. Most of her stuff I would classify as folk. That's not to say that she's not a great singer - - she is. It's just that most of her stuff isn't my cup of tea.

I'm a huge fan of Uncle Tupelo / Son Volt. Love the music. To an extent, I view them as 30%-40% country, 30-40% Southern Rock, with the rest being a punk and or even grunge influence. Very cool, but not really the focus of most of my interest.

Love Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris (although for whatever reason, I can only take Emmylou in small doses). <Shrugs.>

Freakwater? Wow! How have I missed them?!? They rock.

Anyway, I'll leave you with two songs, one from one of my current faves, The Band Perry. While I will highlight a bunch of artists that are mainstream, I am generally drawn to bands that are not mainstream, or in most cases, before they go mainstream. I didn't really have that chance with Band Perry, as they kind of came out of nowhere to hit quadruple-platinum with their first album, and number one on the charts with If I Die Young, their second single ever. A pretty dark subject matter (and one that, to be honest, is probably a bit too deep for me to enjoy under most circumstances, and also one that is a bit muddled), If I Die Young took an odd path to number one on the charts, hitting number one after an inexorably slow climb up the charts, finally reaching the top in its 35th week after release.

Why do I like it? The bluegrass themes and instrumentation, the lead singer Kimberly Perry's haunting, unusual voice, and the harmony, which can only be helped by the singers being three siblings. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Song #2, for no particular reason other than I was thinking about it tonight, is Jason Aldean's Amarillo Sky. We have talked about issue/protest songs before on these boards, and IMHO this is one of the more thought-provoking and well-written issue songs in the history of country music (and it is a deep rich tradition that we will explore in later blog posts), even if it is about an issue about which our ever-more urbanized society thinks less and less about: the disappearing family farm and the plight of the family farmer. And yes, the video is a powerful one, I think. Genre-wise, this is a direct descendant of Southern Rock, and while this was one of Aldean's first hits, he has become a very succesful country entertainer, even if one of his songs I consider to be one of the worst country songs ever recorded. More on that in a later blog post.

Why do I like it? I think that country music is often at its best when it is highlighting a way of life that is rapidly disappearing, whether to make a point about an important issue like the loss of the family farm or just to wax nostalgic about Dr. Pepper advertising slogans or living five miles off of the end of a blacktop road. Yes, that's a another tease. . . I have promised myself that I will provide more frequent updates to this blog. Until then, please let me know what you think about these choices.

[Coqui]

Very little commentary, and three songs appropriate for a Memorial Day weekend from the annals of country music:

Travelin' Soldier by the Dixie Chicks - This sounds like it was written in the era in which the song was set, except it wasn't. It ended up being the last (so far) Dixie Chicks song to hit #1 on the country charts. A haunting, sad ballad that may be their best song.

Ridin' With Private Malone by David Ball - All ballads today. This actually touches on another small theme that country songs sometimes hit - ghost stories. Quirky in more ways than one, this song was an independent release that hit #2 on the charts.

Letter From Home by John Michael Montgomery - All of these are of recent vintage, but this one was written in response to a recent war.

If your tastes run to older stuff, might I recommend The Ballad of the Green Berets by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.

Everyone have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

[John]

Thank you for the links, James, and for the excellent sentiment. We absolutely need to remember to honor our veterans, and country music is as American an institution as they come. Of the songs you posted, my favorite was "Riding With Private Malone." Very mellow, but very nice.

[Denra44]

Never was big on country, although i live in the middle of the Panhandle of Texas, I still really like the acoustic guitar. I can overall like a song by sound till i read the lyrics (since stereotypical alot of country song are about either, wife/girlfriend left, truck broke down, dog died, or just getting drunk)

[Coqui]

I have promised myself that I will provide more frequent updates to this blog. Until then, please let me know what you think about these choices.

{blah, blah, something something, best laid plans of mice and men. . . .}

Rather than fulfill one of the many teases of future posts that I have left up-thread, today's long overdue post is driven entirely by what popped up on Pandora. As you'll see below, if you are a superstititous sort, maybe this has something to do with it being Friday the 13th?

I've written some about the different genres that make up country music, some of which have to do with musical styles (i.e. bluegrass, Southern rock, etc.), and some of which have to do with subject matter (i.e. protest songs, ghost songs, etc.). The inspiration for today's post is another subject matter genre of country music, and probably the darkest one of all: death/murder. These songs are a guilty pleasure of mine, and have long been a staple, albeit a small one, of the country scene. Johnny Cash, in particular, made a living off of these songs, sometimes tangentially, as in Folsom Prison Blues (e.g. I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die - - one pointer about that, it's generally not a good thing for marital bliss when your 4 year old sings that line at the dinner table after listeining to music with dad in the minivan), sometimes much more dark and violent, as in the Cash song that I've linked below.

First, a relatively new song from a recent alt country singer, that started this whole post when I heard it this morning: Down the River by Chris Knight.

Second, IMHO the darkest Johnny Cash song ever: Delia's Gone

Third, in honor of his being the master of the genre, perhaps Johnny Cash's most haunting song ever: I Hung My Head

Fourth, mainly to lighten things up a bit, one of the more unusual country songs of the past couple of decades, meshing as it does the fine country music traditions of murder (tongue-in-cheek-reference here, of course), protest (in this case anti-domestic violence in an intentionally ironic way), and novelty/humor. This is the second appearance of The Dixie Chicks on this blog: Goodbye Earl. I link to the actual music video because (a) it adds to the hilarity, and (b) everyone should see Dennis Franz as a dancing corpse at least once in their life.

[Jim]

I haven't had time to read many of the off-topic forum threads. But I'm glad I dug into this one.

For most of my life I would have told you I hated country music. But when I became involved with my wife, she expanded my horizons into the world of country music. She took me to an Alabama concert and during the concert I decided that I actually liked the music. We have been to many country concerts since then, most recently Zac Brown (e.g. Chicken Fried)

When I was a youngster, I remembered a song that I heard in the Bonnie and Clyde movie. It was one of my favorite songs, but I only knew of it as "that song in Bonnie and Clyde". Recently with the help of Pandora, I discovered the title was Foggy Mountain Breakdown, first recorded by Flatt and Scruggs.

I liked many Johnny Cash songs, including some of his most popular ones. But my favorite is Sunday Morning Coming Down

Hank Williams was probably my favorite country artist.

Paint Me a Birmingham, Time Marches On, and Find Out Who Your Friends Are performed by Tracy Lawrence are all strong songs.

I love songs like Beer for My Horses (featuring Willie) and was singing out loud in my car for about a year with several Toby Keith CDs I had discovered.

I went along to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville as a favor to my wife. But she had to drag me out of there because I wanted to learn all about the history and the artists :)

Anyway, I feel I am only just now starting to learn about country music, having barely scratched the surface. I am finding that there is a lot of variety and interesting distinctions in widely diverging artists and their styles. I'll be following this thread to help me discover and understand new gems.

[Coqui]

I had really detailed plans about a mailbag post, answering some of the comments received here, and another post (in my head only of course) of some of my least favorite songs, this blog being entirely too positive to date to be entertaining - everybody loves a critic, after all. But then, country radio intruded. . .

Look, it's not often that I hear a country song that turns my head. Amuse, yes. Laugh, yes. Sing along, absolutely. Maybe in the '60's, hearing some of Johnny Cash's more socially aware stuff would have done it, but it's a bit passe when you first hear it in the '80's or '90's or now. But on one of the recent occasions that I actually listened to country radio (a rare occurrence these days - I'm almost a full Pandora convert) a new song stopped me in my tracks (figuratively, not literally, as I was actually driving down the interstate at the time), and it deserves not just a link but links to commentary as well.

First, here are the first couple of lines of Merry-Go-Round, the first ever single released by Kasey Musgraves, a second-division finisher on the now-defunct country American Idol wannabe pretender Nashville Star:

If you ain't got two kids by 21,
You're probably gonna die alone
At least that's what tradition told you.

And it gets even bleaker from there. It's like Taylor Swift and Alanys Morissette had a brooding, but peppy love-child. With (slight) twang. Here's the whole song.

The song was so notable it even spawned a glowing review on Slate. IMHO, that review is a bit too triumphal in its snootiness about rural America (or perhaps maybe that's just my prejudice against Slate), even as it fairly criticizes the triumphalism of the generic country music boilerplate lyrics trumpeting "Rural America [as] a bastion of faith, family, trusty pickup trucks, cane pole fishing, sweet tea drinking, etc.", a reason that I've given on this blog as one of the reasons that I like country music. The truth, of course, as noted in that article, is that both rural Americas exist, certainly in the same town and often in the same nuclear family.

This theme of course, isn't exactly a new one in country music. Jim just hat-tipped Tracy Lawrence's Time Marches On one post up thread, after all. And of course, this wouldn't be a country music thread if we didn't have Denra44's comment up-thread about "wife/girlfriend left, truck broke down, dog died, or just getting drunk". He left out trains and mommas, of course, and while predictable, I think that I am morally obligated to link to this classic country song that manages to be self-deprecating and self-reverential all at once (feel free to skip ahead to the 3:00 mark for the joke). David Allan Coe, who sang the just-linked-above "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" actually has one of the most notable songs of the genre, but I will not link it here because of offensive language (no, not the f-word, the n-word.)

Anyway, back to a discussion of Merry-Go-Round. What makes this song so notable in a rich history of the genre? Maybe it's the upcoming holiday season where Black Friday now starts on Thanksgiving afternoon/evening, but this lyric grabbed me:

Same checks we're always cashin'
To buy a little more distraction

I guess what struck me about this song was that it seemed much more like criticism than some of the other songs of the rural-and-country-life-ain't-all-sunshine-and-roses genre, which to my mind vary between that's-just-the-way-things-are-agnosticism (the aforementioned Time Marches On strikes me as being an example of this) to triumphalism (Long Line of Losers is a perfect example, and a darn fun song in its own right).

Anyway, enjoy. Or be sad, or something, I don't know.