Notes from a reluctant country music convert
Dear morals/identity, I'm seeking approval to enjoy songs that celebrate the enjoyment of ice-cold beer. Yours truly, Coco.
In 2012 I managed a rock n’ roll art gallery right in the heart of Toronto that sold limited edition photography prints of Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and the like. On nights and weekends, I photographed live music for various media outlets. I had a tiny office above an Indie record label, all of my friends were music journalists and played in bands. In so many words I was one of those annoying music snobs, who believed my identity was directly tied to my musical tastes.
This is why, it’s especially hard to stomach that during that summer, I secretly, passionately, and ashamedly, fell in love with country music.
I know some of you might want to throw me a bone here. I must have meant “cool country,” right? You know, the kind that everyone can agree on, like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson. But no, I fell head over heels for twangy, bubblegum back road, top 40 hits. Luke Combs, Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett, and yes, even Florida Georgia Line. If you don’t know these bands, I did you a favor and hyperlinked that last one.
When I wasn’t at the gallery or taking photos, I picked up shifts at a cozy, Singaporean restaurant called Hawkerbar. When it was packed, which was every night of the week, the windows were steamed up with West End scenesters. Know that I use that term widely (and lovingly) to encapsulate myself too. During service, we blasted hip-hop, b-sides, and other ‘cool tunes,’ at a gratuitous level. If anything remotely radio-friendly came on, I’d hear the audible groan from patrons, through my knit beanie I yes, often wore inside while working.
Little did the trendsetters of Toronto know that between 3-4pm every day, top 40 country is all I played there. There were no portraits of Robert Plant or Nick Cave staring me down, casting judgement. Nope, this little realm was all mine. Wiping down tables in prep for service, I’d sing at the top of my lungs about life on a farm somewhere chasing down girls and fireflies. If that song didn’t have bare feet, tanned legs, a keg, or a pickup truck somewhere in it, I wasn’t interested.
I thought I had good taste in post-modern rock, and rarities. I had a record player and said gross things like, “who was there last night?” I was an atheist, liberal who had never touched a tractor. What was happening to me?
I started to crave company from these country singers, who yes, maybe had some pretty opposing attitudes about gun ownership, but they knew how to find zen in a winding dirt road, solace in red solo cup. In lyric, song, and rhythm this music had perfected how to tune-out and turn-off. After years of meticulously crafting my inner indie-rock darling, I was exhausted, and in hindsight, easy prey to country music.
My boyfriend at the time was to blame. On weekends we’d leave the city, our car packed with the basics, and we just drove. Passing the skyscrapers, we watched the concrete world fall away to cornfields. Windows down, and looking for parking lots to do donuts in, I was soon yelling the lyrics to Eric Church’s Drink in My Hand, at the top of my lungs. My mood was simply better when country was on.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens to the human psyche when you love something that doesn’t quite “love you back.” Forget the crush of unrequited romantic love, what happens when you fall for an entire subculture that doesn’t align with your morals, or straight up might even hate you? As a teenager, I was head over heels for punk music and consistently listened to bands that were all male, all white, and had some pretty grating lyrics against women. All of my favorite books were by Hunter S. Thompson, Irvine Welsh, and Jack Kerouac. Why did I constantly surround myself with art that was far and away from my own experiences?
It’s become widely known that female country artists are at a major disadvantage in the genre. Artists of color are even worse-off. Dr. Jada E. Watson recently published, “of over 400 artists signed to the top three Nashville label groups between 2000-2020, only 1% were Black and 3.2% BIPOC.” I mean, you don’t have to dig too deep to see with your own eyes how hetero, male and white it is.
“I didn’t expect you to like country Coco,” I hear almost as often as, “I didn’t expect you to drive a pickup truck.” Because I’m an artist, or I vote a certain way, do I need to stay in a certain lane of music? The petulant child that lives inside of me whines: “Why can’t I hear a song about dirt and let go?” Is the privilege of kicking my mud-covered boots off and cracking an ice-cold beer too tangled up in my identity for me to enjoy freely?
All those years ago, I wondered: Am I a lover of country because it’s ironic, or do I love it because the life of a white, right-wing, gun enthusiast is exotic to me? Maybe I was tired of people telling me what was “high,” and “low,” art. Sick of selling (or rather, attempting and failing to sell) three-thousand-dollar portraits of the Rolling Stones. Was I trying to fit into a world that was lacking in representation, or was I slowly converting into the demographic I mocked and feared for the better part of my young adult life? Should you separate the art from the artist in this case? Where’s the line?
This year, Jason Aldean, one of my favorite musicians in 2012 came out with a song called, “Try that in a Small Town.”
“Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town.”
Hawkerbar is closed now, not before that meddling boyfriend and I threw our engagement party there in 2015. Our first dance was to One of Those Nights by Tim McGraw. When we walk by a restored old truck, you’ll hear us utter in unison, “damn that’s a nice truck.” We switch the station now when it gets a little too preachy (or when Jason Aldean comes on), but man, when I hear Cold Beer Calling My Name, I suddenly smell freshly cut grass and hear loons on the lake. The sound a slide guitar makes does something to my stomach that resembles butterflies.
Do we do a disservice to the ‘better art,’ in the world, by consuming top 40? Am I in denial about the answers to these questions just because I want to feel good when I listen to music? Maybe I am less of an intellectual for liking songs about beer. But maybe that’s OK. Perhaps I’m not paying enough attention to the history of country and maybe that’s not OK. What I do know is that I’m tired of asking if I’m less liberal, less Chinese, less “good,” when shuffling through the music that sends the windows down and the volume dial up. So much of how we trace identity is tied to fixed amounts, what if our identity is more akin to fluid, shifting in volumes; a water cycle rather than a packed suitcase.
There’s a sweet little bridge in Toronto over the Don River which connects Queen Street West and East. A quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, shimmers in iron type: “The river I step in is not the river I stand in.” My entire life, I passed by this bridge without giving those words much thought. But now, my mind travels back to these words and this bridge, when I’m confronted with gut-punch adoration for certain types of music, art, and film that seem to conflict with my ideologies.
I only recently looked up the rest of the quote:
“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing onto to you. The river I step in is not the river I stand in.”
I don’t know about you, but that kind of sounds like a country song to me.
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Thank you to everyone who has shared articles, podcasts, and music recommendations since reading this piece last month.
Here are some links to inspire contemplation re: country music in America. And please, keep them coming! I know we’re only on the crest of this conversation especially with Beyoncé’s 16 Carriages album only recently teased…
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I highly recommend this Vulture Podcast w/ Sam Sanders: Into It: Country Music’s Race Problem. Thanks to my friend and colleague Leila for sharing this with me.