Country Music and Political Connections

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

I was reluctant to post this because politics does not belong on the Forum, but this is an interesting article about country music, So, I have my opinions and I'm sure that you have yours. Let's keep them to ourselves and just enjoy the article. -- chas

November 19, 2007, 12:30 pm
Country Music and Political Connections

By Kurt Campbell

Kurt Campbell is an expert on Asia and security issues who is now chief executive of the Center for a New American Security. He served in the Pentagon in the Clinton administration, in charge of Asia/Pacific issues, and earlier taught at Harvard. Kurt has written widely, for popular and academic audiences, about everything from Japan to nuclear policy.

Since the disappointing outcome of the last Presidential elections, Democrats have been haunted by a lurking anxiety: Is the party that prided itself on understanding the lives and challenges of common Americans now out of touch with the rank and file? Has the persistent Republican harping on how Democrats are a bunch of Volvo-driving, brie-cheese-eating elitists hit a nerve?

Certainly the 2006 congressional contests that saw Democrats surge to victory and reclaim majorities in the House and Senate helped, but there are still underlying worries about how to make a deeper cultural connection to rural and suburban America. For those blue-tinged partisans who have not yet thrown in the towel and movedto New Zealand, there is a real temptation to mount an anthropological expedition to one of the big red splotches of Republican America to learn more about life in the heartland in order to better compete for hearts and minds and votes.

However, there might be an easier way to gain deeper insights into the soul of America even without leaving the obvious attractions of Blue State life. In just a few minutes a day, without leaving the comforts of coastal living, you too can learn about what matters most to those hard core Bush backers and new Huckabee zealots across Midwest and South by simply tuning your radio dial from NPR, soft jazz, or rock and roll oldies to your nearest country western station, the one that still boycotts the Dixie Chicks. Country music – not jazz, hip hop or blues – is the most authentic and popular form of music in America today.

That’s right, modern country western music provides the most compelling and honest insights into life in rural, homespun America. Unlike previous caricatures of country music with its hillbilly stories of hard drinkin’ and cheatin’ hearts, modern hits often tell more complex stories of everyday struggles that resonate powerfully with many Americans.

Scan the hit charts of a recent country countdown. There is the song about a wife struggling to keep her young family together and her composure while her husband fights in Iraq. There is the catchy tune with a poignant verse about a man trying to be a better person in the midst of losing his job and hoping to find his life’s purpose. Another twangy hit describes comforting family traditions passed down from father to son and the insights that come with the passing of time and the turn of generations. Then there is the one about reaching out and putting America’s boot to the posteriors of the terrorist enemies of America. Truth be told, country music sensibilities tend toward Old Testament punishments rather than New Testament forgiveness and redemption.

Taken together, contemporary country western music paints a picture of an America committed to hard work and traditional family values. It is deeply God fearing but can be surprisingly compassionate and open-minded, sometimes when you least expect. The songs describe regular people striving to live better lives in the midst of temptations and daily reminders of failure.

However, country music is also revealing of a deeper (and darker) nativism that lurks in the modern American worldview. There is the occasional pride in ignorance and the seeking of refuge in black and white simplicities. Foreigners do not fare well generally, when they are not altogether ignored in song lyrics, and the overall genre does serve some generous helpings of xenophobia to go along with the biscuits and gravy.

Still, most songs are uplifting, often inspirational, even with the occasional ode to the attractions of NASCAR or the nearby saloon.

Yes, even with its love for the vehicular and alcoholic, country western is the best place to start to learn a little something about what it means to have a family, to struggle making ends meet, to own a gun or a pickup truck, to support our troops unquestioningly, to enlist in the military and fight our country’s wars and to generally be very proud of what America stands for — and to profess confusion over just what all this fuss is about when it comes to our foreign policy choices.

For Democrats striving to know what lurks in the heart of a Red State voter, it’s a pretty good place to start. And, you might find yourself singing along to the sad story of some hardscrabble and down on their luck guys looking to make a connection, just like the Democrats.

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

David Doggett · Posted 20 Nov 2007 1:15 pm **Re: Country Music and Political Connections**

Clyde Mattocks · From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA

Yeah, I wouldn't read too much into that analysis.
I remember when bluegrass festivals first got going.
The tobacco chewing farmers and the long haired hippies eyed each other warily at first, but were
soon jamming together all night long, drinking from the same jug and having the time of their lives.
Our similarities are greater than our differences.

Eric Jaeger · From: Oakland, California, USA

An excellent and interesting book on the subject:

Rednecks-Bluenecks-Politics-Country-Music

Bounces all over, good reporting, minimum bombast.

-eric

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Well chas it's pretty ridiculous to post an article by a Democrat decrying the loss of Country Music as a political tool.

Nonetheless, as the lock is cocking, I have some input.

Country Music has from the time of Jimmy Rogers and Woodie Guthrie been the bulwark of the Leftist. From the Dust Bowl, Grapes of Wrath, and Woody's anthems for the IWW to "Busted", "50$ a Week", "Let it Roll" "Lord Have Mercy on the Workin Man", and Hundreds of "I'm broke, and The Rich Man is Keeping Me Down" songs, the proletarian cause has had a prime voice in Country Music.

The author is right however by noting that the New Left has as their champions, The Ultra Rich Inbred Mutants, like the John Kerry Jay Rockerfeller, Kennedy, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the actual Four Top Millionaires in Congress, between them drawfing nearly all Republicans. Limousine Liberals.

The Pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm. A Classic Example.

The Bottom has become The Top, and not missed a corrupting influence or opportunity for graft and pelf along the way.

Their "constituency" seems to want to emulate them, and disdains the working, the patriotic, the military, smokers gun owners stock car race fans, drinkers of non-wine beverages, and all things that they wish like hell were beneath them.

Problem is that the things they "have the blues" about, are pitifully petty, myopic, and not unlike the burning self caused fires in Southern California. Million Dollar Houses and homeless millionaires that nobody cares about, while they huddle in their Ford Excursions while they decide which Radisson Inn to huddle in their stark tragedy of Global Warming caused Poverty...

The groundswell nowadays is more consisting of the working people that are the targets of this "Upwardly Mobile Elite" and their misguided environmentalism, ignorant isolationalism that only they can afford to continue ignoring the consequences of.. The people that smoke tobacco, own guns, can't afford to work "union jobs" buy houses in overvalued Yuppy Security Neighborhoods drive cars they actually pay for, go to church, have kids that must join the military rather than go to college, or all the other classic trappings of The Undermensch.

The people that have found themselves represented more by the Political Party that has taken up the cause against the Upper Elitists that the Animal Farmesque Democrat Party has become. The Republicans.

It's hard to say where it started, but Somewhere between Roosevelt and Reagan. Between Johnson and Nixon probably.

It's obvious that the attempt to bring Country Music Fans back to a Proletariat that has been taken over by Nuevo Elitist Leftists has been a failure.

The Dixie Chicks win a bunch of Grammys for a record that nobody bought by fellow Neuvo Leftist Acedemes. Trade in their Hate GWB Tirade for more than half their concerts being cancelled, and any bumpkin being hard pressed to find their good country songs on any dial, AM, or FM.

I think that Country Music will always move the working, thinking, living, real, believing, and people of real character.

The "Sides" or "Parties" will change, and go back and forth, and the wistful will long for "the way it used to be" as they watch it move toward the opposite shore, perhaps knowing that it probably wont' return in their lifetimes.

These Tides classically take more than a couple decades.

In between, The Wise, in a long tradition from Tennesse Ernie Ford and Eddie Arnold to Brad Paisley and Vince Gill won't betray their political beliefs or resort to pandering, and will be more popular overall.

How many Woodie Guthrie songs do we remember? Less than Hank W and Eddie Arnold certainly.

In my mind, Tonite This Heartache's on Me was good, but I know nearly every word to every Brad Paisley, or Vince Gill song. I hear them all day long and play their covers in bands. I have to pop my DXCX CD in to hear them, as I often do.

If a person wants to be "on the wave", in where Country Music is "Politically", they have to objectively discern where the pendulum of the "Real Proletariat" is.

In the case of the DXCX, somebody really goofed, and for the sake of The Music, IMHO, it's too bad. Like whoever had the bright idea of them posing for a naked PETA Ad that they later bought and canned.

Time will prove that I'm right.

Now.

Glad that this isn't about politics.

Wink

HFLE

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Matt Dawson · From: Luxembourg, Europe

Iv'e always wonderered why blue means conservative, and red means left in every country in the world except America. Actually Iv'e also always wonderered why an entrée is a starter everywhere else, and a main dish in America....

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Matt, It got arbitrarily changed by the news media from Red to Blue. Kind of a comical ironic affront. I'm thinking it was 2000. A google search would probably tell.

My comments are not meant to promote any particular administration.

I am a smalltime champion of the proletariat. Merely commenting that Country Music IMHO, like blues, is our music, and that's it. Different parties find us, use us, and leave us. The latest was the Democrat Party.

We're still here, right where we were, scratching, struggling, working, dying, believing, drinking, hunting, camping, living outside the gated communities, carousing, spitting, and smoking, and listening to and playing Country Music.

Those artists that ignore the obvious fail. Regardless of how good their music is.

Like Bob said: "You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

And Leslie, yes it does.

Smile

EJL

Mark MacKenzie · From: Franklin, Tennessee, USA

That’s right, modern country western music provides the most compelling and honest insights into life in rural, homespun America.

Don't kid yourself.

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · From: Ayrshire, Scotland

Arch.
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I'm well behaved, so there!

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

I prefer to use the term "Hillbilly Music". Just my personal preference, but goes back to my ancestors from the hills of southwestern West Virginia.

They liked it all, for the music.

Barry Blackwood · Posted 21 Nov 2007 8:29 am

"We're still here, right where we were, scratching, struggling, working, dying, believing, drinking, hunting, camping, living outside the gated communities, carousing, spitting, and smoking, and listening to and playing Country Music."

Eric, you left out farting and using your fingernail for a toothpick. As far as I'm concerned, time has already proven that you're wrong....

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

with hillary, we will have had 12 years minimum of the same illuminati run family (bush/clinton)pulling and having their strings pulled. culminating hopefully in the 2012 cosmic event straightening some of this insanity out!

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

We're not going to go there. Locked.
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