In Defense of Country Music: Intro to Country
Stereotypes
Two years ago, I
wrote an essay for my nonfiction class that looked at the stereotypes that
surrounds some of the music I listen to including country music. I started off
each section with popular definitions of the music from urban dictionary. The
one I used for the paper defined country music as, “an unbearably irritating
form of music that uses the same twangy gee-tar and awful wavering voice to
sing about a very short list of topics such as: cheating spouse, alcoholics
drinking to excess, pickup trucks, bein' a good-ol-boy, not havin' any a them-thar
teeth and screwin' horses.”(1)
I’m going to be
honest; I like country music. “But what do I mean by country music?” you ask.
My Dad’s Country
My first
introduction to country music was the stuff my dad listened to when I was
growing up. While I’ve never fallen in love with the radio station that played
the music he grew up with, the tagline of which was, “all the hits from the
60s, 70s, 80s” in an echoey announcer voice, I loved the country music. Alan
Jackson, Toby Keith, Rascal Flatts, and Josh Turner were what my family jammed
out to in the green jeep.
Vacation Time-Machine
Although we
couldn’t afford to leave the country on vacations, my parents managed to make
fun family vacations out of the places within driving distance. But that meant
really long car rides with my two siblings and me crammed into the back row of
the green jeep Cherokee trying to lean over kicking feat, sneakers long since
slipped off still tied, across pilled up pillows, and pushing aside snacks just
to reach the crank to roll down the windows. My parents about at their wits end
would ask us what we wanted to listen to. “The chicken song!” The chicken song
was Alan Jackson’s “Where I come from” which goes like this: “Where I come
from/ it’s corn bread and chicken/ Where I come from/ A lot of front porch
sittin’” I forgot that my back hurt, my sister had kicked me, and Josh finally
stopped fussing, as my dad added in twenty more “Yee haw!”s than Alan Jackson
originally put in. Sooner or later we ended up in Williamsburg, Virginia and
could run around the campground, while my parents set up the pop-up.
Terrible Timing
My family has
never had the best timing. No matter how many episodes we watched that was as
benign and age-appropriate the moment my mom walked in it became the most
violent, inappropriate show on television. Every. Single. Time. My mom,
siblings and I could have spent all day keeping the house perfectly
spick-n-span and 100% tidy, but as my dad unlocked the door blocks would jump
from their bins, dishes would become dirty and strewn about the kitchen, and
school books would suddenly appear all over the tables and chairs. If it
weren’t so frustrating and disruptive to the household harmony, it would have
been a miracle.
Therefore, it
really shouldn’t have surprised anyone that almost immediately after we moved
to a new house, my brother was born (making us a family of 5), the company my
dad worked at was bought. His job moved to Milwaukee, but we didn’t. Luckily,
he hadn’t believed the promises of “Oh you’ll keep your job” and had been
looking. It was a pay cut, but it didn’t sink us. Oh this was also during the
housing crash of ’08.
That new house,
thankfully, wasn’t too overpriced, but the market crashing and burning around
us, with the fussing of a newborn baby, didn’t help the sting of the pay cut at
all.
“I can feel a chill of a cold November
wind
Here in Oklahoma that means it is
wintertime again
Every time I think about the rain and
sleet and snow”
We didn’t eat
out much less than once per season, we stopped going to a lot of
extra-curricular activities, and in the evenings the house itself seemed to
strain under the weight my parents had to carry.
“I start dreamin' about siestas
underneath this sombrero
Baby if you're good to go we'll go down
to Mexico
Get a place in Cabo, kick back in the
sand
It'll be just you and me and moonlight
dancing on the sea
To Spanish guitar melody of a mariachi
band”
Golden Sand Lining
As the stock
market plummeted and wallowed, my family was soaring listening to Toby Keith’s
“Good to Go to Mexico”. After dinner, as I cleared off the table and my
siblings stared at the pile of peas attempting to will them out of existence,
and my mom put condiments back in the fridge, my dad would put on Toby Keith.
“I got two tickets bought
There won't be no second thought
Weather's always nice down there in
paradise
We'll find that little man who owns that
taco stand
We'll be drinkin' margaritas while we're
workin' on our tan”
My dad would
start dancing as he rinsed off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher
rocking side to side. It’s difficult to put into words how my dad sings along
to songs. While he isn’t a terrible singer, he doesn’t really try that hard to
get the words right. He mumble-sings those he doesn’t know, and sometimes doesn’t
even do that and throws all care to the wind blatantly singing the wrong words
over top of the singer, as though the CD is obviously blatantly wrong. Before
we knew it dinner was cleaned up and he’d put it on again.
“Cancun don't get me high
That's where the snow birds fly
They like to winter there
Then they come from everywhere
I'll take the Baja sun
It ain't overrun
With the gringos and the touristas
We might be the only ones”
A Dance Floor
In the yellow
glow of the floor lamps, the dark, cold and cloudy November family room echoing
with the song was transported to warm Mexico or (meh-hii-coh as my dad would
pronounce it in his terrible fake Spanish accent). He’d also trill his tongue
and yell “Yi Ha!” as he grabbed my mom’s hand and twirled her around. She’d
start laughing, our dog Casey would start barking, and I would do bad handstands as
if they were dance move.
“Baby if you're good to go we'll go down
to Mexico
Get a place in Cabo, kick back in the
sand
It'll be just you and me and moonlight
dancing on the sea
To Spanish guitar melody of a mariachi
band”
That's part of what country music is to me. Next week I'll explain why I can like both Johnny Cash and Roger Miller, but not want to vomit when I'm listening to (and actually enjoy (Gasp!)) Kane Brown, Clare Dunn, and the rest of the newest country.
Notes:
Sources:
(1) kc512,
UrbanDictionary.com user. February 20, 2010.
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