With the podcast behind me and the world heating up beneath me, I’ve been trying to channel my energy and angst on writing and recording music. I’m not sure how to confess this without risking the wrath of your judgment, but here goes…
All my songs are coming out C&W.
I know. I know!
If Sabbateur readers were primarily Gen Z (which sadly they’re not, because I am crusty and irrelevant), I wouldn’t fret judgment. Gen Z mixes and mashes, recklessly abandoning boundaries. These young’uns rightfully see music genres as a suckers’ game.
But I’m a sucker from a generation that stakes ego on genre. Had I worn a Travis Tritt T-Shirt to high school, I would’ve needed to find new friends stat. If my pals got in the car and this was on the radio:
…I would have been sore-assed from wedgies, eating lunch alone for the rest of junior year while being mocked as a poser for my Iron Maiden Powerslave T-Shirt.
Such was my adolescence. And truth be told, save for Garth Brooks, whose songs were simply irresistible, I didn’t listen to much country in my teens. In fact, I decried country to keep up appearances.
Then I went and got me one of them liberal arts degrees. My college pals and profs also decried country music. The commercialization. The simple, often cliché, sometimes misogynistic themes. The dog whistles. Country was to be problematized, not listened to. Country, no; alt-country, yes, they said. Hank Williams, no; Lucinda Williams, yes. Billy Joe Shaver, no; Billy Bragg, yes.
Gen Z’ers aware of the Jason Aldean problem might judge my current inclination to country. But today’s Aldean problem rhymes with the Charlie Daniels problem in the 80’s and the Merle Haggard problem of the 70’s. Haggard took a shot in the culture wars of his generation with his hit number one hit, Okie from Muskogee:
We don't make a party out of lovin' We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy Like the hippies out in San Francisco do
40 years later in an interview with American Songwriter, Merle called the song a "character study" and said:
“It was the photograph that I took of the way things looked through the eyes of a fool. I was just as dumb as a rock at about that time, and most of America was under the same assumptions I was…They had me fooled, too. I’ve become educated. I think one of the bigger mistakes politicians do is to get embarrassed when somebody catches them changing their opinion. God, what if they learned the truth since they expressed themselves in the past? I’ve learned the truth since I wrote that song. I play it now with a different projection. It’s a different song now. I’m different now. I still believed in America then. I don’t know that I do now.”
Well old Merle evolved and doggonit. I have too, though I didn’t realize it until this week. Despite the potentially problematic politics of country music, I am winding my way back to my roots. My roots?
Well sort of. My mom, RIP, was all about Motown, especially Stevie Wonder. But strangely enough, my dad was all about country. US 99 all the time. I phoned him this week to ask how a westside Chicago Jew found fondness for country. It was the characters, he said. The stories.
I could tell you stories about driving in the family sedan, sucking down a steady stream of country radio as though ridin’ in a pickup, hoping my dad wouldn’t sing. My brother and I would howl like hounds in the back seat when he did sing, not that either of us could or can carry a tune. I could also tell you stories of my brother and I pretending to be Bo and Luke Duke, the coolest, most popular fellas on TV (save for the folks on Dallas). The Dukes of Hazzard County, GA had “been running from the law since the day they was born” (as the theme song goes). Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. And Daisy Duke, my first crush*? Forget about it.
I did forget about it. I got neck deep into hip hop. Then metal. Then blues. Then jams. Then jazz. Obsessed by all of it. Posters. T-Shirts. Tapes, CDs, Vinyl, Napster. But I never returned to country.
That is, until now, since I’ve been writing music that keeps coming out country. This week, I have been fully embracing country music. I made a playlist of my favorite country songs that I heard on the car radio, many of which I haven't heard since the 80’s. This is not a “best of” country playlist, it’s a best country of my childhood playlist**. In crafting, editing, and altogether obsessing over this playlist (which I cordially invite you to enjoy over on Spotify), I’ve been thinking about what it is about country music that makes me instinctively write in that genre as well as what made me turn away from it as a tween.
I’ll address the second part in short order. I repudiated country because (a) it was a natural t(w)een rebellion, (b) the engineering of country records in the 80’s should have been illegal; it sounds compressed and altogether awful, (c) hip hop consumed me, then metal did, (d) it was illegal in Illinois to have hip hop and country records in the same collection.
Other than nostalgia and my inclination to speak my native musical tongue–both of which are powerful forces–what is it about these songs that compel me to write in their shadow?
Let’s get back to the Dukes of Hazzard for a moment. There is an outlaw spirit at the core of country that I’m drawn to. In the same way I was drawn to the heel in wrestling, similar to the spirit of the Run DMC and Flava Flav, I root for the rebel.
And while the drudgeries of adulthood have, I’m loath to admit, quelled the Rebel Yell of my youth, it might please you to know that I sometimes sing Johnny Paycheck as I roll through the halls of my job. Indeed, I was in a faculty meeting this Wednesday where I caught myself singing this single under my breath.
Outlaw country can be a little on the nose. It can also be aggressive. But there’s another side to outlaw: the sweet, sensitive country love song. Country folk seem to live and love harder. Whitney Houston’s "I Will Always Love You" is breathtaking. But it’s a breathtaking version of the 1974 Dolly Parton track on the Jolene album. Country love songs are just dripping with it!
I know, I know. Love songs. Passé. Gotcha. But lest we forget, this is country music. Trucks, dogs, breakups. Country love songs teem with tension. Heartbreak is always just around the corner, a pedal steel guitar will take you there. Full, rich stories unfold in country music.***
Most of the stories seem earnest. Earnestness is less compelling to contemporary cultural critics, who are more likely to praise social commentary, irony, and snark.
But there is plenty of snark in the country music of my youth. There is also plenty of humor, a lot of it deadpan, much of it euphemistic, some of it hyperbolic, some of it self-deprecating, but all of it self-aware. Indeed, there’s more self-awareness in country than meets the eye.
I would even argue that there is awareness of how the nostalgia of country music presents as regressive. There is a Good Ole Days ethos to country music that demands scrutiny. The tracks that beg to turn back time, especially when the Confederacy is invoked, don’t sit well with me. I reject the culture war anthems that denigrate modern cosmopolitan life. Sometimes the dog whistles sound like dog barks and feel like dog bites.
But not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater, there’s also a sense of positivity, optimism, and hope in country music. Some of the best tracks are rollickin’ fun. Plain and simple. And amidst the terror and tumult of this week in global affairs, country music did precisely what it’s created to do. Country soothed my aching soul.
Contrary to the contempt of country-haters who prefer to paint country as simple bumpkin folk art, there are levels to this thing. One level that gets overlooked is musicianship. The country landscape is brimming with shredders. You can’t roll a ball down the streets of Nashville or Austin or Branson without it bouncing off a brilliant musician.
Amidst the tumult and anxiety of this week’s political violence, in a deliberate effort to turn away from the pain and frustration of creating a safe but challenging space to discuss this darkness with my students, I created a little space for myself this week. I reconnected with the rebellion, snark, humor, earnestness, musicianship, notalgia, love and heartbreak of the country music of my youth. It’s on display in spades on this Spotify playlist. Please enjoy!
Soon enough, I’ll share some country inspired tunes I’ve been jamming on. I’ll also share a podcast I recorded yesterday on the IDEAS channel with four Ukrainian teens about their lives in Berlin.
But now it’s time to get the kid out of bed and on the train to school, then run back home to dust off the suitcase for a daddy-daughter jaunt to England. If you’re in England, get in touch, I may just let you buy me a pint.
Yours,
DL
*Unless you count Maria from Sesame Street as my first crush, which I might.
**A “best of” playlist that transcended my childhood experience would surely include Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, Brad Paisley, Zac Bryan, and Allison Krauss.
***My dad is right about that. But I can’t manage to credit my father for being right in the body of the newsletter. If he reads this edition, I don’t reckon he’ll read the footnotes ;-)
I’m learning how rituals that mark time matter to me. So this year, I am carving out an hour or so on Friday to sit quietly before my family wakes to write about what I obsessed about that week. If you enjoy this weekly reflection, please subscribe so I can send it to you every Friday.