Sex, Booze and Country Music - Yee Haw!
By Brantley Smith
Posted On February 23, 2006
The soul of country and western music has been corrupted, my friends. From the glorification of gratuitous sex to the obsession the current crop of country stars have with drinking and hell-raising, this uniquely American genre of music has slipped into the sewer, or the septic tank for you rural types. Has anyone watched CMT lately? Are all country music videos shot in bars and bedrooms? Roy Acuff must be doing a couple thousand RPMs.
Country music used to be one of the last bastions of relative decency in American pop culture that the American parent could feel fairly safe about (“Turn off that nasty MTV, Billy Joe, and listen to some real music!”) But CMT, for example, has become a how-to manual for the up and coming teenage good ole boy and gal groping around in the backseat of a Chevy (or a Ford, or a Dodge, but not a Toyota) searching for the true meaning of life. Listen up, you would-be redneck Casanovas: Tequila makes her clothes fall off - Joe Nichols said so. Jose Cuervo sales must be going through the roof in rural America.
Alcohol use and abuse have replaced broken hearts and pickup trucks as the primary themes of country’s most popular songs. From Brad Paisley’s Grammy-nominated contemporary history of “Alcohol”, to Gretchen Wilson’s lessons on what can happen when you’re “All Jacked Up”, boozin’, brawlin’, and beddin’ ugly women (“Billy’s got his Beer Goggles On,” by Neal McCoy) seem to be all young country fans think about. Whatever happened to fast cars and four wheeling?
Toby Keith’s “As Good as I Once Was” (How about a threesome, Cowboy?), another Grammy nominee, laments the ravages of maturity on the middle aged, hard-drinking, but not quite over the hill good ole boy. Wear a cowboy hat and big belt buckle and drink a good American beer and the young country maidens will come a runnin’. Toby provides a true song of hope for the redneck midlife crisis. Then there is Trace Adkins' “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”, as in, Nothin’ gets a good ole boy’s blood pumpin’ like a fine female Badonkadonk in tight Levis. Still don’t get it? See the video. How did they get those britches on and, more to the point, did they have to cut them off?
In all fairness to today’s stars, modern country has always embodied a penchant for walking on the wild side. From Johnny Cash to Hank Williams to Bocephus to Willie and Wayland, boozing and “rolling smoke” have always represented an outlaw fringe of the culture. Despite country’s ever increasing efforts to appeal to the MTV generation of rural youth, both performers and fans remain fiercely patriotic folk. The post 9/11 songs are endless and all country. Though I cannot quote statistics, my instincts tell me that country music fans make up a much larger percent of the US Army and Marine Corps than, say, fans of pop, rap, or hip-hop. Anyone ever heard an anti-American country song?
That said, the lyrical trends indicate an ever increasing emphasis on good old American redneck debauchery. Is all this simply the inevitable evolution of country music or is it a more disturbing trend that reflects an overall deterioration of American culture radiating from the coasts and big blue cities into the heartland? While encouraging our young people to have a “Big and Rich Time” are we also allowing America’s music to perpetuate the myth that true happiness can only be found in a pair of tight jeans and a bottle of Lynchburg’s finest? I don’t know the answer but I’m headed out to buy some Cuervo and Viagra.
Brantley Smith lives in Tullahoma, TN and can be reached at usmcengr at aol dot com.
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