While at the hardware store today, I couldn’t hear what The Wife was saying to me because the people who run the store were playing the local country music station really loudly. And the lyrics were all so… nice! Not “nice” in the sense of “pleasant” or “enjoyable;” most of the rhymes were at or below the level of Sting (“Giant steps are what you take / Walking on the moon / I hope my legs don’t break / Walking on the moon”) at his least imaginative. No, I mean “nice” in terms of having been written with an eye towards offending no one at all about anything, and thereby reducing the content of the song to a pablum.
One stood out as particularly saccharine: a song about a young boy who liked his dad so he wanted to eat all his food so he could grow up to wear a cowboy hat and camouflage pants. The musical arrangement had successfully taken any hint of an edge off the song; it was all slickly-produced fiddles and twangy harmonies. I guess I understand why some people would want to not hear about death and sadness and broken families all the time. Still, this is not my style, and I’m not just talking about the fiddle and the slide guitar. This was so sweet it damn near put me in diabetic shock.
I’m sorry (being a musician and all) C/W is NOT really music. Just for the reasons you give (so sweet it puts you in diabetic shock) but also because everyone who sings wears a cowboy hat.Have you ever seen Ray Charles wear a hat like that (well maybe once or twice)? Or how about Miles Davis, or Jimmy Hendrix? Sinatra wore one, but that was for a movie……The only exception is Shania Twain.
I’ll grant you that exception — Shania is a hottie.
I thought it was a sad song. it was about how kids are looking at everything you do, good and bad. The edge is that so many people who listen to country probably have broken or never-formed families, so role-modeling takes on added importance and is more of a challenge.