We live in an America that lacks harmony. There is no American tune these days, no true red, white and blue chorus we can all join in on. When the National Anthem is played, lots of people still rise and remove their hats but a sizeable number of us remain silent in our seats and others kneel in protest. America’s soundtrack these days is filled with harsh sounds and jarring rhythms. Often there are angry and offending lyrics, too. Lots of us don’t want to listen anymore; we have tuned each other out.
But we mustn’t quit listening. That would be the same as to stop breathing; it would be equal to giving up on our democracy. We’re all free to yell, rap and howl as much as we want. But if we don’t listen — especially to each other’s songs — then we’ve lost our American tune forever.
Once upon a time there was a place called America’s Heartland. That is where you could find music that was so authentic it was called “Country.” The songs were about small hometowns, lonesome highways and honkytonk romances. There were cowboy and trucker lullabies, American anthems and lots of songs about whiskey drinking and D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
If we go looking (and listening) today, will we find that same music again? If not, what songs have taken the place of Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash? (And don’t say Taylor Swift, please.) Are the new artists still singing about faded love and lonesome whippoorwills or is this where we will find songs played by the January 6 insurrectionists and white supremacists? Does anyone still sing songs about trains and dedicate them to “Mama?”
A trip to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry or spinning the AM radio dial might uncover some of today’s top Country tunes, but a Spotify app on your smartphone would prove a better source. Like all the rest of the genres in music today, it is “downloads” that push artists and songs to the top of the charts. All this makes it hard to picture Ernest Tubbs or Kitty Wells sharing their songs on their Twitter or Instagram accounts.
Country music is where we should find the most faithful definition of “family values,” wouldn’t you suspect? What voices will we find singing songs about abortion, if any? What has replaced the Confederate Flag backdrop we used to see at Country concerts? (The Confederate flag has been banned at all NASCAR races, in case you didn’t know.)
Would you be surprised to learn that there are a lot of drag queens in Nashville? Or, that a top male singer was suspended from the airwaves for making a racial slur? Or, that an entire country album titled “Georgia Blue” was comprised of songs by Georgia Country artists to celebrate Joe Biden’s presidential victory there?
Country music is assuredly more popular in red states than in blue ones, even though Las Vegas and Los Angeles are home to more Country stars than Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry these days. It’s probably true that a majority of Country music fans voted for Donald Trump and not Joe Biden but that obviously doesn’t tell the whole story.
Listen. And listen some more.
The top Country hit just before the COVID-19 pandemic was a rap version of “Old Town Road” sung by rapper Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. There are still very few Black or minority artists in Country music but its top performer Morgan Wallen got sent to the woodshed until he offered a convincing apology for making a racial slur. (His recording contract was suspended and he was disinvited from several Country awards shows.) “I was wrong. It’s on me to take ownership of this and I fully accept any penalties I’m facing,” said Wallen. “I let my son down.”
When the Tennessee State Legislature banned public-funded drag queen performances and library story hours, top-name Country artists staged protest concerts in Nashville and Knoxville that also included calls for more gun control laws in the wake of a mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school. The Knoxville concert featured a chorus line of drag queens.
Still, there’s plenty of “straight talking and straight shooting” sentiment in today’s Country music, as well as longing for simpler days and the “songs Grandma and Grandpa used to sing.”
Part of America’s disharmony is that red and many Republican voters mistrust “elite liberals” and city slickers. “Blame it all on my roots; I showed up in my boots, and ruined your black tie affair,” sings Garth Brooks. “It breaks my heart seein’ foreign cars, filled with fuel that isn’t ours,” sings Toby Keith in his song “Made in America.”
Tammy Wynette’s classic “Stand By Your Man” still gets lots of radio airplay but today’s Country music is now being written and sung by strong and independent women like Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile, Lily Rose, The Chicks and many others. In this year’s top Country Music Academy single, “Wait in the Truck,” songwriter Lainey Wilson and her singing partner Hardy track down a domestic violence assailant and deliver instant justice. That’s pretty much the opposite of standing by your man, don’t you figure?
The Chicks take on a bigger macho and misogynistic target in their latest hit: “Gaslighter, denier; Doin’ anything to get your ass farther; Gaslighter, big timer; Repeating all of the mistakes of your father.” (Remember that the Dixie Chicks dropped Dixie from their name in the middle of 2020 “to meet the moment” at the same time they released a new song called “March, March” presented with videos of Black Lives Matter and women’s rights marches.)
How far is all of this from Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee?” Listening back, all he wanted was to be “living right and being free.” Haggard didn’t really like politics and it’s hard to imagine him writing songs for Trump, let alone voting for him.
Ironically, most of the music played at those MAGA-fantastic Trump rallies are rock songs including anthems from Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones. (All of these artists have sent the Trump campaign “cease and desist” demands to little avail in most cases.)
No matter what, don’t look to Trump for any musical licks or other cultural clues. Right now he is embroiled in a self-made controversy with The Village People for his repeated use of their gay and diversity anthem, “YMCA.” Why in the world Trump’s campaigners would play this song to rev up the MAGA fanatics who are anti-LGBQT, anti-woke and pro-gun is anybody’s guess.
To settle on a single genre of music or a limited set of songs would fail to capture the soundtrack of America and its diversity of musical roots and influences reaching back to our country’s beginnings and forward to our modern, fractured times.
America’s Country music is a rich stew of mountain music (Appalachian Irish-Scottish fiddle tunes), gospel (slave field hollers), Mississippi Delta blues, minstrel show and vaudeville songs, ragtime, cowboy yodeling, rebellious rock n’ roll and studio pop. America’s music is also rap, R&B, lounge ballads, jazz, techno, punk and soul.
Where’s Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark when we need them?
— Rollie Atkinson