Five Song Friday RERUN: No Country for This Old Man
This Week: Soft Spots, Fishing Innuendo and Golf Claps
People dislike certain genres of music for all kinds of reasons.
Sometimes it has to do with your personal history.
You could loathe classical music because your parents forced you to play piano or violin as a kid. Now whenever you hear Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” all you feel is white hot rage. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” puts you in the fetal position.
Für Elise? Für-geddaboutit.
Maybe the reason you hate jazz so much is because it was always playing in your father’s study and you weren’t allowed in while he was “riding the Coltrane.”
So you took up saxophone and offered to show him how good you were at “In a Sentimental Mood.” But you weren’t good at all and he made you stop and write a letter of apology to John Coltrane, even though he’d been dead since 1967.
Then he made you bury the sax in the backyard.
And I know more than one person who can’t listen to the Grateful Dead anymore because they went to a concert once and got chased around the parking lot by human-sized Tweety Bird Pez dispensers with T-Rex arms.
Sometimes you can’t stand a certain kind of music is because it’s forever linked to one specific person.
Like you can’t listen to ska because of that boy in middle school who wore a black-and-white suit and did that herky-jerky elbow dance so hard once that he broke your nose.
The guy in the next cubicle at work ruined Swedish death metal by listening on headphones and whisper-singing “Regorge in the Morgue” by Vomitory while you were trying to enjoy a chicken salad croissant.
And you really wanted to like Rush, but… Todd.
Goddamn Todd. He made it near impossible.
The list can be a million reasons long, with each of those reasons making sense to nobody but you. Or maybe even you don’t understand why the hostility runs so hot.
Personal taste is a complicated thing.
But sometimes, the reason you don’t like a certain kind of music is because that music is just objectively terrible.
That’s the box I’m checking for contemporary country music.
Specifically, country music of the last 20 years or so.
You know, the music with all the songs about whiskey and chicken and cheating.
The music that loves trucks and America.
The music most often mistaken for a commercial jingle for a casual dining restaurant and/or a virility drug.
To be clear, there is a LOT of country music that I adore.
I appreciate the classics. I could listen all day to country songs from the sixties and seventies. I have nothing but love and respect for Johnny, Hank, Loretta, Tammy, Conway, Waylon, Willie and Merle.
And I’ll be the first in line when we vote for making Dolly Parton a saint.
But when it comes to the average boot scoot ballad about beer and broken hearts?
I just can’t.
I’m aware that plenty of people CAN.
But it doesn’t work for me. Not even a little bit.
I swear it’s not a red state/blue state thing. It’s not a north/south thing. It’s not an urban/rural thing.
I’ve thought about this a lot and I think it’s the lyrics.
They blow. With hurricane force.
Sometimes when I hear one of the songs by accident I laugh and look around to see if someone is playing a joke on me. And they are, because people are singing along to the words… which are about drinking beer in a truck and talking to God.
If you think you can change my mind or prove me wrong? Be my guest.
I know it sounds awful, but I really think I’m right on this one.
But maybe I’m just jealous because I look stupid in a cowboy hat.
Five Song Friday 031
“Be Brave” - The Strange Boys
Most boys are strange. But this sloppy quartet from Austin are stranger than most. They sing and play their songs like they are cartoon drunk, but somehow it works. It’s whiny and twangy and all topsy-turvy, but they stick the landing.
“Happy (God’s Own Country")” - Sports Team
Yes, I have a soft spot for snarky-sounding British indie bands. I like it when they call potato chips “crisps” and talk about “the tube.” So sue me.
“Fisherman” - The Peach Kings
If you only hear one innuendo-heavy song today that leans HARD on the analogy of fishing and hooking up, this will fill that slot.
“Play Some D” - Brassy
Today I learned that the lead singer of Brassy is Muffin Spencer, the little sister of Jon Spencer (of Blues Explosion fame). This is a big moment for me. I appreciate you allowing me and my family the space and time to process this news.
“So What’cha Want” - The Record Company
I listen to a lot of songs during the week. Some of them are good, a few are great. But it takes a rare bird to make me do a double take.
Once in a while a song comes around that I need to play for my wife to make sure I’m not crazy. A song I send to a friend with giddy excitement.
I’ve been compiling stupid playlists for a while and there aren’t many songs worth hushing a table full of rowdy middle-aged dads during a Saturday night poker game for. But folks, this is that song.
Standing ovation. Golf clap. Chef’s kiss.
The Record Company have taken a Beastie Boys classic and turned it into something new and beautiful but sweet and familiar… like those square watermelons they sell in Japan.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on YouTube Music
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
“Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.” - Kurt Vonnegut