My earliest memories of music in my life would have to be those of traveling in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee or on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, listening to cassette tapes of bluegrass or southern gospel, and even a magical blend of the two. My parents would even take me to see the bluegrass musicians at Dollywood, and basically everywhere else in East Tennessee. I just love the sound that a couple of “simple folks” can put together with a few basic, acoustic instruments.
I strayed from these roots a bit in middle school and high school, learning to play electric guitar, and becoming vehemently opposed to all things country. I remember saying, “Every country song is the same; you lose your house, your dog, your truck, and your wife.” To an extent, this is quite true. Anyways, back then, it was all about the instrumentation for me, the more distorted electric guitar, the better. Listening to me play in those days must have been awful.
Well, as I’ve matured, I can’t help but feel like my musical taste has greatly improved. Whether you agree with my tastes, or not, I can only say that now, music is so much more fulfilling than it was before. Still mostly into the rock scene as I went to college, I had to dip into rap and hip-hop a bit as I moved to Midtown Atlanta, but this was to be short-lived. Much like my opinion of country music, on the whole, rap all sounds the same, however there are a few key differences. Being an engineer, let me itemize them:
- Rap lyrics are disgusting for the most part.
- The talent required to put out a rap album is minute at best.
- Country songs are about working hard to get out of an adverse situation, while rap tends toward dwelling on the poor conditions you live in, and waiting for someone (possibly your socialist government) to bail you out. Forget working hard to get out of the ghetto, let’s just whine about it, smoke some weed, shoot someone, and disrespect our women (except for momma; you talk about my momma or my Aun-tie, and I’ma cut you so bad you wish I not cut you so bad).
- Country songs are frequently patriotic.
After reviewing the above list in my head, I made a choice. It’s ok to like country music. There. I said it. I enjoy it, much like I did so long ago. Does this mean that I like all country music? Absolutely not. I’m finding out what I do like, though, and I’m really enjoying it, thus far. Just a few of the things I’ve, so far, discovered are as follows: Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts, some Brad Paisley, and some patriotic songs by Toby Kieth. I’m open to suggestions. I like the stuff that isn’t about losing your house, your dog, your truck, and your wife. So… If this means we can’t be friends, ok, fine, you probably weren’t a good friend anyway. Maybe I’ll write a song about all this. More on that later.