February 17, 2004
Gettin' my redneck on
Maybe it's post-Speed Week hangover, but I've had country music stuck in my head all morning. It started last night actually, with Garth Brooks' "I've Got Friends in Low Places". This morning I'm happy to report that things have gotten at least a little classier and that I've moved on to Patsy Cline: "I Fall to Pieces".
No matter how I try to hide it or fight it (and believe me, I've spent a lot of time doing plenty of both), I was raised on country music, and I'm never going to be able to get away from it. Not completely. And by country music, I don't mean this Shania Twain/Faith Hill pop-wannabe crap. I mean real old-timey, shit-kicking, honky-tonk stuff. Even the cliched stuff about getting drunk and pickup trucks and losing your woman (or man).
I don't get my fascination with it either. I mean, as a rule, country music ideology is almost dead set against my own political views (I'd be happy if Toby Keith never said a word in public again, or at least would just quit trying to speak for the rest of us), but at the same time, there's a lot of heart--especially in the old stuff--that just doesn't exist in any other genre of music.
Contrary to what a lot of folks believe, there's good country music and there's bad country music. Country has its share of Britneys and Christinas (although they tend to be a little older), but hey, they've also got the likes of Johnny Cash. As I find myself drawn back into listening to country, it's getting easier and easier to separate crap from gold. Maybe that's a function of getting older, or maybe it's just from being away from it for so long.
In any case, yeah. I'm listening to country again. Sooner or later I know I'm gonna end up with a playlist full of Rage Against the Machine and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard--and really, there's not such a huge gap between them. They're all singing about the things most people don't want to talk about.
(NASCAR and country music within a day of each other. Lord, I'm losing my liberal intellectual cred here, aren't I?)
Posted by Lisa at February 17, 2004 11:01 AM