I do not listen to cool music. My taste in tunes is similar to that of a 60-year-old man’s. I like the Irish Rovers and Jimmy Buffet, and as a child enjoyed the Lawrence Welk Show on occasion.
I have a particular soft spot for country music. It is a genre too often ignored and misunderstood by legions of hip college students, Hoyas included. You can’t walk five feet without seeing a fashionista sporting cowboy boots, yet if you asked that same girl about Big and Rich she’d probably just think you were talking about her investment banker boyfriend in New York
Country music has not always been my passion. There was a point in my life when I, ensnared in a sticky web of peer pressure, attempted to embrace trendy groups whose band names sounded like diseases and body parts to me. I tried to learn the names of their atonal songs and struggled to understand the whining noises issuing from the lips of those angst-ridden sitar players. It didn’t take.
And then, in my 16th year, it all came together: I discovered that pickup trucks and tractors are sexy and realized that “Margaritaville” is only the tip of the iceberg as far as Jimmy Buffet’s musical genius goes.
Quite appropriately, I first indulged in country while driving in my wholesome American-made car (a sleek Buick Century, the more geriatric second cousin twice-removed of the Dodge Ram). Flicking through the radio stations, trying to find some music as up-tempo and energized as my driving, I landed upon the local country station. I can’t even remember what song was playing. All I know is I liked the sound of it.
Publicly displaying my passion for the music was another story. I am from Cleveland, and regardless of what East- and West-coasters may think, not everyone in Ohio indulges in hoe-downs and barn raisings on Friday nights. Out of fear that my friends would scoff at my taste, I hid my country habit for quite some time. Eventually I emerged from this dark period of my life, and although I believe my mother thinks less of me, I am happy with my decision to come into the open.
Country music is attractive because of its honesty, lack of pretension and unadulterated sense of fun. At a school where some students try to string together sentences with as many 23 letter words as they can, it is refreshing to hear the lyrics, “She’s got that Honkey tonk badonkadonk/ Got it goin’ on like Donkey Kong/How’d she even get those britches on?” blasting from your radio when you get home.
These verses sound much like something from the rap that’s popular on campus (minus the honkytonk part). Although the occasional harmonica blast and banjo strumming may fool you, country artists know how to get down. While the chronically underfed boys of the indie rock scene whine about their heroin addictions and cruel meateaters, country crooners sing about kegs in the closet and their first kisses.
You can listen to the story of your life sung in a Texan’s drawl, whether you’re a rancher from Okalahoma or an heiress from Connecticut. Country runs the emotional gamut; one minute you’ll hear an ode to miniskirts, while the next, a cowboy love song makes you wish a man with a guitar loved you too. Any song might speak to you– it could be the twangy strains of “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” and “I Like My Women a Little on the Trashy Side” or the softer verses of the wanderlust ballad, “Wide Open Spaces.”
Yes, country music can be a little trashy, a little hokey, a little over the top. But so is life sometimes. In an already confused world, country music has the courage to tell stories straight. Whether the song is about heartache and heartbreak, boozing or broads, you can always be sure that the hair will be big, the banjo will be loud and the heart will be worn on the sleeve.
