On March 18, my roommate Leah McGinnis and I drove back to campus from Franklin with the windows down and the aux volume in her 4Runner (named Stan, I’m still not sure why) almost at max.
On March 19, I woke up and discovered that I couldn’t hear very well out of my right ear. A small price to pay for my enlightenment in the ways of country music, given that this affliction lasted no more than an hour or so.
A note about Leah: she is incapable of listening to the same song for more than 90 seconds, so we went through a whole lot of music on our two-hour mini road trip once we decided that the country vibe was the best fit for the day’s mood.
“I feel no shame, I’m proud of where I came from / I was born and raised in the boondocks,” she and I belted out half an hour in as we drove under the Natchez Trace bridge, having in fact been born and raised in the hipster haven of Franklin, Tennessee, and the suburbs of Newark, Delaware, respectively.
An hour later, we were crooning along to “Porch Swing Angel” and agreeing that romantic porch swings in our future houses are a must. At some point, “I’m Gonna Miss Her” came on, and I gladly took advantage of Spotify Premium’s unlimited skips to get to Leah’s favorite country rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.” We then bemoaned Spotify’s apparent lack of Garth Brooks’ version of “Friends in Low Places.” The two hours flew by, and we were back in Jackson before we knew it.
Of course, I later had to borrow her playlist to actually listen to those songs the whole way through.
Growing up in Delaware, I didn’t really listen to a lot of country music. The local country station, 94.7 (still the only northern DE country station I know of, or at least the one most prominently featured on local billboards), was just a stop on the way to my preferred station, 95.7, which primarily played hits from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, with some more obscure or more recent tracks thrown in. That was more my jam. I knew a lot of people who did listen to and enjoy country, but I wasn’t one of them. I categorized the little I knew of country music in one of two ways: the knee-slappin’ boot-scootin’ yeehaw kind, or the twangy acoustic ode to one’s lost girl/fish/tractor/etc. “Mountain Music” versus “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” I guess.
Also, I definitely was not so grossly uninformed as to think Little Mix and Little Big Town were the same thing. Definitely not.
I can already feel the disappointment of my Appalachian ancestors and the people reading this.
Then, two years ago, I visited Tennessee for the first time and discovered that the likes of Shania Twain, Luke Bryan and Thomas Rhett were playing on practically every other FM station (the ones that weren’t playing CCM, at least). When I committed to Union, my dad jokingly told me that I’d have to get into country now.
On a trip to Nashville during the fall semester, I got excited when I recognized approximately five of the country artists on the Walk of Fame, inviting Leah’s not-so-clearly veiled but well-founded scorn at my ignorance (nothing new for me, having been previously laughed at for referring to those delicious small freshwater crustaceans that the South so loves as “crayfish”).
And now, after eight months (give or take) of listening to Leah’s playlists and creating my own, I can finally say I enjoy country music, and that trip from Franklin marked that realization.
Based on my observations over the course of that ride and many jam sessions since then, I have drawn some conclusions about country music that may be worthwhile for anyone who, as I was, may be unenlightened to its worth.
- What country music is good for: Background music for doing homework in your hammock on sunny and 75 kinda days, getting “in your feels” (as Leah says) at 2 a.m. and of course belting out on road trips. See “Cowboy Take Me Away,” “Porch Swing Angel” and “Little White Church,” respectively.
- What country music is not (usually) good for: Getting pumped up or motivated, working out. It’s just much easier to sing along to “Sold” when you’re swinging in a hammock instead of clocking miles on the treadmill.
- What qualifies as country music: I won’t pretend to have a quick and easy definition for this, so here are some archetypal qualities from my (very limited) experience: some sort of twangy instrument (including but not limited to banjos, steel guitars and fiddles) that is featured anywhere from a small to large extent and heartfelt, usually narrative lyrics, not necessarily concerning girls, fish or farming (although those are some good starting points). I enjoy discovering the variety of styles that have developed within the country genre, from rugged foot-stomping ballads to more “polished” tracks with pop sensibilities. However, there has to be a limit somewhere.
- What does not qualify as country music: “Old Town Road.” Just no. Can’t nobody tell me nothing on this one.
Even if the boondocks aren’t where I learned about living, love, working hard and that having a little is just enough, Leah McGinnis and a few months in Tennessee have taught me a greater appreciation for country music than I ever had. This northern girl had no idea what she was missing.
