Moments of Permanence - Conversations and music - country and otherwise...

From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 10:27 am (UTC) (Link)

Country music is rural, country music in a lot of cases is by and for the poor and the uneducated.

Sounds like folk music to me, but folk doesn't seem to come in for the same kind of mockery. I wonder why?

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From: sqbr Date: June 9th, 2009 10:32 am (UTC) (Link)

It's for mythical past poor/rural people rather than modern day real ones?

(sami: I've been watching the Country Music channel a bit recently and thinking similar thoughts)

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From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 11:32 am (UTC) (Link)

I don't know about mythical... most folk was written by real poor people, albeit past ones. Perhaps it's the past thing that is crucial. Blues is another genre that's in a similar position. Maybe enough time brings critical perspective, plus appropriation that makes the genre more palatable to the musical establishment.

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From: sqbr Date: June 12th, 2009 03:03 am (UTC) (Link)

Sorry, yes, mythical was the wrong word. Maybe "idealised and distant" is better, especially since it also includes poor folk singers from "exotic" countries.

That's a good point about the appropriation. Hmm.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 10:34 am (UTC) (Link)

What sqbr said, plus, folk music was played by Bob Dylan and other mainstream performers - folk music is for middle-class people who are just slumming, not real poor people.

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From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 11:34 am (UTC) (Link)

It *was* written by real poor people though.

I agree that folk, blues and such genres have been appropriated by the mainstream and that is likely to make them more acceptable and palatable to the middle-class people. But that then begs the question... why has country and western not been through a similar process?

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 12:23 pm (UTC) (Link)

I think it's relevant that folk music hearkens to Simpler Times/Values etc, and therefore was ripe for appropriation by middle-class people (yes, SOME folk music was written by real poor people, but it was appropriated to hell and back, or why are the famous folk musicians people like Bob Dyland and Peter, Paul and Mary?), whereas country often embraces rural values that the middle class sneer at.

After all, songs about earth and farming and so on are Getting Real, but country songs about everyday contemporary life? That's so common. And it's written by people who are not just poor, but all Southern (in America) as well. (In Australia, country music is just rural, and that's enough. I mean, the Country Music Awards take place in TAMWORTH.)

And the country ideals aren't trendy. Even the ones which are in some ways modern, like the songs with a distinctly feminist bent, aren't the Right Kind of feminism. Take, say, Romeo, by Dolly Parton - that's the girl power ethos in action, but it's in action by older women with big hair making comments about a be-mulleted Billy Ray Cyrus.

What self-respecting urbanite would want to appropriate THAT?

I think I'm getting rather sarcastic, but I seriously think it's just that tendency to sneer at rural/country people. The assumption of inferiority and crudity, where at least folk music's roots can be idealised as Nature and Simplicity, and blues and jazz both came from *black* culture - which means they pick up a kind of Noble Savage motif, where it's clearly the Art of the Exotic Oppressed that white people can appropriate.

Whereas white people from Nashville or Tamworth aren't exotic, they're just uneducated, trashy, inferior. And therefore country music must be terrible. Dolly Parton is all big hair and overdone makeup and big tits - she couldn't possibly also be an amazing woman with serious talent, now could she?

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From: lady_ganesh Date: June 9th, 2009 12:46 pm (UTC) (Link)

Dolly Parton might not be the best example. ;-)

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 12:55 pm (UTC) (Link)

For a horrifying moment I thought your point was that Dolly Parton is not actually awesome, and DUDE I CAN NOT LIVE IN THAT WORLD. (Given that I'm currently listening to songs off Backwoods Barbie on YouTube, and deciding I NEED to buy this album, if only so I can play Better Get To Living and Jesus and Gravity when I'm struggling with depression.)

I know that she's getting more recognition now, but on the other hand... she had to start her own record company to release Backwoods Barbie, because DOLLY FREAKING PARTON couldn't get a record contract any other way.

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From: lady_ganesh Date: June 9th, 2009 12:59 pm (UTC) (Link)

I COULDN'T LIVE IN THAT WORLD EITHER OMG.

That's in part because of mainstream country music, though! Don't start me on the modern record industry, heh. Johnny Cash only started selling again because Rick Rubin found a good way of marketing him-- and it wasn't as a country artist.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 01:57 pm (UTC) (Link)

Right, clearly I only listen to good country. ;)

Take the Dixie Chicks as an example, then. They're kind of sneered at too - even after the whole thing with the death threats for saying something mildly negative about Bush.

The thing I'm currently realising is how healing certain country songs are for me. At the moment Better Get To Living and Jesus and Gravity are kind of rocking my world, and the Dixie Chicks' Not Ready To Make Nice really helps me sometimes when dealing with my Bad History stuff.

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From: lady_ganesh Date: June 9th, 2009 03:19 pm (UTC) (Link)

Obviously! And honestly, some of the 'new' country is fine-- Carrie Underwood is as poppy as they get and I kind of love her.

I still keep meaning to watch Shut up and Sing. And oh, I love Not Ready to Make Nice.

IIRC, there are black roots in country music too. And of course, there are black country singers though they're hard to find.

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From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 04:14 pm (UTC) (Link)

I think it's relevant that folk music hearkens to Simpler Times/Values etc, and therefore was ripe for appropriation by middle-class people (yes, SOME folk music was written by real poor people, but it was appropriated to hell and back, or why are the famous folk musicians people like Bob Dyland and Peter, Paul and Mary?), whereas country often embraces rural values that the middle class sneer at.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here. When I think of folk I either think of old songs like Matty Groves or new stuff like the music of Phil Ochs. Neither of them really falls under the category of Simpler Values.

If by "rural values" you mean conservative values, then I suppose I will confess to disliking that aspect of country.

Whereas white people from Nashville or Tamworth aren't exotic, they're just uneducated, trashy, inferior.

I do take your point about the non-exotic aspect of things but... if you're talking about country music being rural, then talking about Nashville is hardly helping your argument. It's a big city... about as big as Boston and far larger than any other city in New England. So I might argue that country music is now southern far more than it is rural.

I mean, I come from a city of 17,000 or so that is the largest and only city in the county. But country music doesn't reflect my small-town experience at all.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 05:03 pm (UTC) (Link)

Okay, time for clarification of terms: when I say "rural", I mean Australian country folk. Rural means people from what we call "regional areas" - the areas outside the major coastal cities where over 90% of the Australian population lives. Tamworth is rural. (It's a large town, but it's still a country town.)

(Also, 17,000 people isn't a small town by Australian standards.)

In America, being Southern is enough.

But no, rural and conservative aren't the same thing. Dolly Parton is one of the greatest country singers and songwriters who ever lived; she writes songs about God and Jesus, she write songs about heartache that don't pretend to be artistic or clever about it, they're just songs about how it hurts. Songs about being poor but happy, songs about being good and virtuous, in the positive sense of that word. She writes songs that mention cowboys and home and loving Tennessee. She dresses and looks like, well, Dolly Parton.

She is also on record speaking supportively of a transgender man who works for her, and devotes a lot of time and energy to philanthropy. She's spoken openly about sex, and written songs that embrace female sexuality as natural. She's been successful and made a lot of money, but she remembers what it's like to be poor, and she talks about it - talks about the tragedy of seeing and knowing people, family members, her parents, who never had a chance at a better life.

Not who wasted their lives - in country music, there are people who go nowhere, who stay poor, and it's not that they didn't try - it's that they tried as hard as they could, but they never had a chance to succeed. But they still live, and love, and experience joy and heartbreak, because they're people.

And there are people who do waste their lives, who could have done better and didn't. And that's just the way it is. There's no grand moral lesson in it. That's just how things are, and country music holds that too.

A lot of this stuff is uncomfortable to middle-class urbanites. No-one wants to acknowledge that out in the country, there are people who are doing it tough, struggling to get by in ways that they shouldn't have to, and yet also experiencing joy in ways that the city can't match. That there are experiences that are real and valid that don't apply to the cities.

Somewhere in there is also the discomfort with the idea that religion and faith can be a part of life, easy and natural as breathing. I sometimes think that God is easier to reach surrounded by nature and open skies, because country folk and farmers seem to find faith more easy and natural than people I meet in the cities, even in church.

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From: lady_ganesh Date: June 9th, 2009 12:43 pm (UTC) (Link)

I think some of it is the increased pop-i-fication and commercialization of country music-- my husband hardly listens to any contemporary country music because it's so processed and 'pop.'

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From: rainbow Date: June 10th, 2009 05:43 am (UTC) (Link)

This makes me thinky. I'm not much for country, but I think it's because when I was growing up (the 60s) most of it *that I heard* was "He was her man and he done her wrong" sort of stuff.

But I liked folk a lot, the stuff I think of as folk -- to me folk music is traditional music. I think of the music of Bob Dylan and most modern (60s to now) folk singers as pop folk or protest music, not folk songs (except when they do sing folk songs...). (I also think of modern C&W as pop country.)

Songs that are what I think of as folk songs are Barbara Allen, Auld Lang Syne, the Ashgrove, Greensleeves, Scarborough Fair, Sur le pont d'Avignon, Die Gedanken Sind Frei, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Lord of the Dance (granted the one I know is the pagan version), Tom Dooley, Cherry Ripe, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, Old Grey Mare, Clementine, Au Clair de la Lune, Hoist up the John B, Polly Wolly Doodle, Early One Morning, Ida Red, Volga Boatmen, Streets of Laredo, the Titanic, etc. (And traditional songs from other cultures, too, of course, but these are ones that I *know*. I'm a little ::cough:: fond of folk music, but it's mstly stuff I grew up with since I don't process heard stuff well any more so learning new songs is difficult.)

I do like some of the pop folk and protest music *too*, but I think of it as a very different genre than traditional folk music.

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From: elspethdixon Date: June 9th, 2009 01:48 pm (UTC) (Link)

I've started to think that the mockery it gets is pure classism and snobbery. Country music is rural, country music in a lot of cases is by and for the poor and the uneducated.

Add racism to that mix and you've got the reason why a lot of people sneer at rap and hip-hop music, as well. It's associated with urban poverty (and crime) the same way that country music is asociated with being a redneck hick.

One thing that I like about both country and rap (and most rock and roll) is that, unlike pop music, there are still a lot of artists who write their own songs. A lot of country singers do, and basically all rappers do (and how many people in general can write metered, rhymed poetry that actually sounds any good? It's not as easy as it looks).

Country music also gets sneered at or dismissed as "not for me" by some people because of the values it espouses. Country tends to be very patriotic, very 'traditional,' very Christian (if you listen to ten country songs on the radio in a row, at leat one will mention God or Jesus), and very much by and for white people. You get the odd country group like the Dixie Chicks who are openly against the war in Iraq, but country singers in general don't tend to be as liberal as some other kinds of celebrities.

The county I grew up in essentially had four radio stations (public radio, one top forty station, one country station, and one rap/hip-hop/R&B station), so I grew up listening to country music. There's few things that will make you feel better than playing "my ex-boyfriend sucks"-themed or openly jingoistic country music *really loud* while driving down the road. It used to be my antidote to certain metafandom kerfluffles.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 01:58 pm (UTC) (Link)

Heh, yeah. Dolly's new song Better Get To Living is a good one for any kind of feeling-low state, I think.

I've heard very little rap that I actually like, but I do respect the talent it takes. Especially when they do it live. (I think that's called freestyling, but I'm not sure, because I am very Not American, and in this particular category, very, very white. Of the 11,472 songs in my iTunes library, I'd guess that less than ten are hiphop. Twenty max.)

Sometimes, too, I think that one of the things people hold against country artists is that it's, well... sincere. All the songs that express feelings in ways that seem cheesy, except for the part where they ring so true - some people like to mock them for the cheesy.

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From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 04:02 pm (UTC) (Link)

Country music also gets sneered at or dismissed as "not for me" by some people because of the values it espouses. Country tends to be very patriotic, very 'traditional,' very Christian (if you listen to ten country songs on the radio in a row, at leat one will mention God or Jesus), and very much by and for white people.

This is a good point. That intersection of patriotism and religion tends to make me viscerally very uncomfortable. Whether that makes me a snob, I don't know, but I'm not going to apologize for disliking it.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 05:14 pm (UTC) (Link)

Apologising for disliking the intersection of patriotism and religion is unnecessary... however, the stereotypes you seem to have internalised about country-type people/Southerners seem somewhat questionable.

Country songs that touch on either patriotism or religion are, in my experience, a fairly small minority, even if they do come up occasionally, but songs that touch both are *really quite rare* and not likely to occur on the lists of truly classic country songs.

Say we took one artist, and went with Dolly Parton because she's the one I know best. If you listened to, say:

- Coat of Many Colours
- Tennessee Mountain Home
- Better Get To Living
- Potential New Boyfriend
- 9 to 5
- Everything's Beautiful (In Its Own Way) - with Willie Nelson
- Islands in the Stream

and didn't enjoy any of them, at all?

That would be easier for me to accept as justified, I guess. And hopefully you'd have less... I don't know. Aversive classism? You kind of give an impression of that here.

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From: naraht Date: June 9th, 2009 06:11 pm (UTC) (Link)

Country songs that touch on either patriotism or religion are, in my experience, a fairly small minority, even if they do come up occasionally, but songs that touch both are *really quite rare* and not likely to occur on the lists of truly classic country songs.

I didn't mean both at once, just that both seem to factor into the value system that elspethdixon is discussing. Whether or not she's right in describing it as typical of country music, you'd know better than me.

You'll notice that I've never said that I hate all country music, because I don't. It's probably my least favorite genre of popular music but I suppose everyone has to have one. I haven't heard the Dolly Parton songs that you've listed, but I will try them out and get back to you. The two songs of hers that I know I do like are "Jolene" and her cover of "Stairway to Heaven."

I object to the idea that disliking country must imply classism, as there is a great deal of working-class music that *isn't* country. I'm a huge fan of Billy Bragg, for instance. Morrissey grew up working-class, come to that, as did three-quarters of the Beatles. Why should their music not be considered as authentically working-class as Dolly Parton's?

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From: luludi Date: June 9th, 2009 03:15 pm (UTC) (Link)

I have a serious dislike for country (in any variety), but I can listen to almost everything else.

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From: sami Date: June 9th, 2009 05:27 pm (UTC) (Link)

*slight twitch*

See comment above - I have a lot of trouble with the "everything except country" school of music appreciation, because... seriously, other than class prejudice, overt or aversive, what's the justification for dismissing an entire wide-ranging genre of music? If you didn't like Achy Breaky Heart, fine, but, seriously, can you see "I can listen to any kind of music except rock and roll" being fair, when that encompasses Buddy Holly and Elvis and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Kansas and Metallica and Bon Jovi and everything in between and beyond?

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From: luludi Date: June 9th, 2009 05:43 pm (UTC) (Link)

I've listened to a fair share of the older country and the newer, more pop (transitional) style stuff and I dislike them both, for different reasons. This isn't to say that I like every rock artist (for example, I don't like Bon Jovi, either) or every rap artist, etc. ~ I'm just saying that, as a whole, I don't find country to be a genre that I ever feel compelled to listen to. It's not because there's any prejudice involved as far as the people who sing it or the people who listen to it goes.... and, it depends on what people classify as country music. For instance, Dire Straits is often classified as country, but I would consider it to be rock or blues. Of the artists/songs I've been exposed to, I dislike the style... the slide guitar, the twangy sound, the overly dramatic way a lot of them sing, the overtly religious aspect of a good portion of country music. These things, of course, are also found in rock and pop and rap, etc., but generally not to the same degree. Am I prepared to say that I dislike every country song ever written? Of course not. I haven't heard them all, but I haven't liked anything I've heard thus far, which has been a fair sampling.

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