Burn In Hell? This Says Burn In Hell!

In no particular order or relevance, I'll somehow touch upon the following points in my usual non sequitur manner:

1) Western is not always Country.
2) Our society's shock value isn't what it used to be.
3) Sometimes it is more, sometimes it is less.
4) The First Amendment also guarantees you the right to shut up.

I bring this up because I am a big fan or Country music. Just not what is passed off for Country music nowadays.

I've mentioned before that this particular listening pleasure was passed on by my dad. We listened to 40's and 50's country whenever we were in the car; it could be a quick jaunt into town or all the way to Colorado, didn't matter. It's a lovely picture - my dad having to turn up the volume so he could hear his music over his children's protests; his wife cringing having to listen to her husband's music and her children's protests. We are a happy family.

But were you to scan my playlists today, you'd find Buck Owens, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and, of course, Willie. Those are easy enough.

But we do get into some level of difficulty when you come across the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, and Lyle Lovett, to mention a few.

I consider them to be in some sort of musical Purgatory - stuck somewhere between Country and Pop. Personally, I think it makes more sense to categorize them as Western since there's enough twang and swing to keep them out of either camp.

What spurred this particular train of thought was by listening to the Chicks the past couple of days. Theirs is a really interesting story. The original band consisted of four girls singing on the streets of Deep Ellum and The West End (whose presence would eventually be filled with another great band, Rivertrain; whaddup, Drew). Two of the girls dropped out to join other then-promising acts and were replaced with one more-talented singer, making the band a permanent trio.

I happened across the Chicks by accident in late 1999. Wide Open Spaces had been out for well over a year, Fly just a few months. I heard a few of their songs while listening to NPR one day; a father called in and mentioned that his three young daughters were dressing for Halloween in wedding gowns, copying the video Ready To Run. The station played some of their music and I was hooked. Later that fall, we took a family vacation to Hot Springs over Thanksgiving. The only time the lobby's tv wasn't tuned into CMT was when the Texas/A&M game was on Friday morning. But for that game, it seemed that every time I walked by, one of the Chick's videos was playing and I was further hooked.

My brother mentioned the other day that their music still isn't played on radio stations. I wouldn't know as I rarely listen to the radio. Of course, it's because people haven't forgiven Natalie for her half-baked criticism of Bush almost three years ago.

What our nation's citizenry chooses to digest at any moment is unbelievably fickle. We'll tolerate the nihilistic rants of Marilyn Manson and Howard Stern while still worshipping at the altar of Free Speech. Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda will always be symbols of misguided liberalism but they are, overall, largely ignored until election time when they're good for several million dollars in fundraising. Even Alec Baldwin's "did he really threaten to move away if Bush won?" non-threat is now passed off as a joke.

As a country, we've forgotten how to protest. Or what to protest against.

For example, some idiot sent in a letter-to-the-editor the other day demanding that the Texas Rangers refrain from playing Belafonte's Day-O during baseball games but mysteriously did not mention Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll (Part 2). Apparently, calling Bush a terrorist disqualifies you from social acceptance but raping little kids does not.

Most protests against authority end up like me and my brother as whiny children in our car's back seat (Bush is dumb; he mangles the English language; he was a bad baseball manager). The anti-protest volume goes up and everything else is drowded out.

After the Kent State shootings in May 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) wrote, recorded, and released Ohio within a week. It was banned from mainstream radio because it starts off with the line "tin soldiers and Nixon coming". Blaming the President for this senseless massacre crossed the unchartered line of decency; but it was still okay to burn down ROTC buildings and raid university president's offices.

I'm not equating what Natalie said to what Young sang since he showed some stones and what she said was timidly weak. If you want to criticize, don't dance your way around it and say you're embarrassed to share the same homestate as the President. Big deal. Do what Belafonte and Baldwin do - try to blast him out of the water by not holding back any words. And don't do it in London. One thing about Americans; we don't mind stupid arguments (in fact, we often seek them out) - just keep it within the family.

Furthermore, how their critics responded was dumb. I really don't care if the Chicks are drug-selling Devil-worshipping Communists. They make good music. Or did, at one point. Last I heard, they were singing the national anthem at charity softball games.

But back to my Country music dialogue. The females in today's Country music industry only come in two black-and-white stereotypes: the attractive lip-stick wearing, brush-your-silky-hair variety (Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, etc) and the more-chaw-in-your-lip-than-Big-Butch (Gretchen Wilson).

Talk about all jacked up.