Country Music and the Morning Drive
Feb. 8th, 2005 06:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kybearfuzzOn this rather dreary Tuesday, I was driving in to work, dreading it for previously posted reasons, when I changed the radio to one of the local country stations. There, I caught this awful song.
It's called "The Bumper of my SUV" by Chely Wright. I had to look it up because the singing was terrible and I'm surprised because I've liked some of her other music. I think it is the subject matter that bugs me more. It talks about a woman who has a US Marines sticker on her SUV bumper and gets the finger from a woman in a mini-van and tells how this woman should be thankful for the servicemen and how her family has served.. etc. For some reason, I flashed to the corny country music of the 1970's, sung by ladies with enormous hairdos and condo-sized lapels, sitting on a stool with a guitar, staring through a Barbara Walters-style camera haze, lip-synching to the recorded track on the "Hee Haw" stage. I shudder to think of it more.
I'm not unpatriotic, I support the guys and gals over there, just not the regime that sent them. This song is just another one of those sappy, country dirges making money off of the war by tugging at the heartstrings of the American people. I guess that is why it feels less patriotic than capitalistic to me. Toby Keith, though nice to look at, does the same thing and I don't like him either. Suddenly, Chely's music doesn't seem all that great anymore.
It's called "The Bumper of my SUV" by Chely Wright. I had to look it up because the singing was terrible and I'm surprised because I've liked some of her other music. I think it is the subject matter that bugs me more. It talks about a woman who has a US Marines sticker on her SUV bumper and gets the finger from a woman in a mini-van and tells how this woman should be thankful for the servicemen and how her family has served.. etc. For some reason, I flashed to the corny country music of the 1970's, sung by ladies with enormous hairdos and condo-sized lapels, sitting on a stool with a guitar, staring through a Barbara Walters-style camera haze, lip-synching to the recorded track on the "Hee Haw" stage. I shudder to think of it more.
I'm not unpatriotic, I support the guys and gals over there, just not the regime that sent them. This song is just another one of those sappy, country dirges making money off of the war by tugging at the heartstrings of the American people. I guess that is why it feels less patriotic than capitalistic to me. Toby Keith, though nice to look at, does the same thing and I don't like him either. Suddenly, Chely's music doesn't seem all that great anymore.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 04:31 pm (UTC)Like you, my patriotism is not something that is plastered to my bumper or pinned to my lapel. And it really depresses me these days to think that bumper stickers and lapel pins are what are considered "patriotic" these days.
Thanks for the warning about that song.
JOhn.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 03:47 am (UTC)As for patriotic songs, some seem okay, but it amazes me how quickly a bad event seems to generate the latest country dirge. It's not my favorite song. I guess because songs illicit certain feelings. For example, the Dixie Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier" I like because it's about losing a loved one during the Vietnam war which was before my time. Anything by Toby Keith or whoever that goes after the 9/11 attack rings hollow, that they made the song to make money off the tragedy. I'm sure that some didn't, but that's how it feels.