I have officially lost all tolerance for country music.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@Jack_Batty

And lasty – I cannot stand the sound a peddle steel guitar makes.

I believe it is a ‘pedal steel’ guitar.

Here’s Jerry Garcia playing the pedal steel with Phish (I’m not a big fan of either really, but they do make some cool sounds.)

Still don’t like it? I suspect you don’t like country pedal steel.

[Ostrya]

…what did the farmer say when the tire fell off his hay wagon?

"you picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel. …3 lonely tires, wtf, what’s the deal?

…you picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel…"

[missred]

@spark240

Bluegrass is certainly country music. It just seems disconnected because the representation of country on radio is generally so bad and so narrow. (We actually do a little better around here, where smaller stations have classic country, bluegrass and even old-time string band shows sometimes. The high-power stations in the bigger towns are the same pop country crap y’all are hearing.)

I’m one of the fortunate ones that has a local country station like that. They play a mix of top 40 country (mostly crap), old school country (a lot of cry in your beer music) and some bluegrass/old time stuff. The country radio stations down the road in Nashville don’t play much of anything but the top 40 country.

Working in the music business on occasion, I would have to agree with Ralph Emory when he said that music business is two words - both with equal weight. It’s a package deal. Some of the best country musicians that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing or working with will never make it big because they don’t have the whole package (looks, age, ethnic background, politics, tolerance for mediocre pop writing) to fit the business side of the equation.

Most of today’s top 40 country is aimed at suburban conservatives in the Bible belt wanting to have their version of badass and Jesus all wrapped up in one genre.

BTW, I love most of Brad Paisley’s music (fantastic guitarist), but hate that particular song too.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Lucky you, OP. You at least at one time had a tolerance for it.

I, on the other hand, would nuke the CMAs every year if I could. If I ever take over the world the very first people against the wall are going to be country musicians, to include anything that has so much as the merest hint of a twang. Even if it drives it underground so I never, ever have to hear it again, even by accident, it’s a good policy. But eradication is still preferable.

Have I indicated that I hate country and redneck music yet?

[NDP]

@you_with_the_face

I don’t know what is being alluded to in the cancer verse. A little help? It makes no sense to me.

I’m at a loss on this as well. How often is cancer referred to in country songs? Off the top of my head, the only songs I can think of that directly mention cancer are some old ones by Lou Reed and Harry Nilssen and they’re definitely not country singers.

[F.U.Shakespeare]

@spark240

But that song is about poor white people, or at least working-class Southerners, feeling pride in their culture but marginalized–it is certainly not about racism or a desire to impose upon anyone else (except “killers” on death row, “pushers” in Miami, and Chinese[?]-made cars). Notice Hank says he’d run for President of the Southern states, not that he wants the South to rule over any other. Remember, Northern and Southern victory weren’t equivalent propositions.

Your parody version seems intensely unfair, and prejudiced in itself.

Agreed - Hank’s song about the south winning* certainly isn’t about racism, or imposing on anyone else, except black people.

Intensely unfair, and prejudiced of me, to criticize slavery and Jim Crow.

Sorry about that.

• I am assuming this refers to the American Civil War (or if you wish, the War Between the States).

[Czarcasm]

Ladies and gentlemen…Mr. Conway Twitty

[Siam_Sam]

Hating country music was just one of many reasons I had to leave Texas. (Another was that I couldn’t mosey.) I recall a student teacher I had in a high-school English course who told us a heart-warming story about how she used to hate country music but then took a cross-state road trip to Dallas with her oommate, who played country the entire way, and so she really ended up liking it. Blechh! Uh uh, not me.

BUT … I have to say I like Taylor Swift. If she’s country, then I may have to rethink my stance.

[curlcoat]

@Merneith

I couldn’t stand the suspense so I googled the lyrics:
http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/brad+paisley/This+Is+Country+Music/

That is some righteous bullshit, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard worse. I can’t say for sure because always change the channel.

Crap - I like Brad Paisley but that song looks like crap.

[Peremensoe]

@F.U.Shakespeare

Agreed - Hank’s song about the south winning* certainly isn’t about racism, or imposing on anyone else, except black people.

Intensely unfair, and prejudiced of me, to criticize slavery and Jim Crow.

The song doesn’t mention slavery and Jim Crow, nor black folks at all, except perhaps obliquely by a shout-out to the sometimes-integrated Dixieland jazz.

And, hard as it is for cultural bigots like yourself to understand, an imagined Southern victory isn’t synonymous in Southern minds with the repression of black folks.

[NDP]

@elucidator

Which is just fine for them post-modernist ironic hipsters and metrosexuals. Kitty Wells don’t care!

Oddly enough, “post-modernist ironic hipsters and metrosexuals” are probably more likely to appreciate Kitty Wells than fans of current mainstream country music who’ll consider her too “old Country” for their tastes.

In fact, that’s probably one reason why alternative country hasn’t really caught on in the Bible Belt. It’s seen as too hipster and “blue state” in its appeal.

[Kimstu]

@spark240

The song doesn’t mention slavery and Jim Crow, nor black folks at all, except perhaps obliquely by a shout-out to the sometimes-integrated Dixieland jazz.

And, hard as it is for cultural bigots like yourself to understand, an imagined Southern victory isn’t synonymous in Southern minds with the repression of black folks.

Yeah, F. U. Shakespeare, honestly. You need to rewrite your parody song so that it focuses on the positive aspects of the Third Reich and Aryan pride.

Talking about mowing down Jews in tanks is such a downer, after all. But if you just sing about how our people would have been pure and fine and strong and noble in sacrifice for the Fatherland, and free from domination by atheistic and alien degenerate influences and parasitic unions, where all the beautiful exercise-loving people could ride around in their Strength-through-Joy cars and build a proud nation that would last a thousand years, well, nobody could possibly be offended by that.

Excuse me, F. U., what was that? You say that the whole political and cultural enterprise of the Third Reich was so intrinsically bound up with racial chauvinism and discrimination that it’s fundamentally impossible to glorify the idea of its victory without implicitly endorsing its prejudices?

Well, that’s a fancy lot of four-dollar words you got there, but I can’t see for the life of me what you think your point is.

[Peremensoe]

@Kimstu

Excuse me, F. U., what was that? You say that the whole political and cultural enterprise of the Third Reich was so intrinsically bound up with racial chauvinism and discrimination that it’s fundamentally impossible to glorify the idea of its victory without implicitly endorsing its prejudices?

Well, that’s a fancy lot of four-dollar words you got there, but I can’t see for the life of me what you think your point is.

I understood F.U.'s point, I just think he’s wrong. And so are you. The Confederacy was not akin to the Third Reich, and typical American Southerners today are assuredly not like neo-Nazis.

More to the point of this discussion, the song is neither intended nor received (by people who like Hank Williams, Jr.) as having racist or hateful connotations. The audience for Hank, Jr., may wave a rebel flag or two, but it’s meant well, absurd as I know that sounds to you. Their attitudes are not like those you’d find at a neo-Nazi event. F.U.'s parody is not only unfunny, it is simply inaccurate. No wonder it didn’t go over.

[Gleena]

Can’t hear you, I’ve got Hank III up too loud.

Course, that’s the only country I will listen to. I moved out of Mississippi. I’d like to think I left the crap music there.

[Peremensoe]

@Gleena

Can’t hear you, I’ve got Hank III up too loud.

I like all the Hanks some.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Siam_Sam

Hating country music was just one of many reasons I had to leave Texas. (Another was that I couldn’t mosey.) <snip>

I think I moseyed once. It’s probably one of those things - if you can’t tell if you were moseying or not, you probably weren’t.

@Kimstu

Yeah, F. U. Shakespeare, honestly. You need to rewrite your parody song so that it focuses on the positive aspects of the Third Reich and Aryan pride.<snip>

Well, they did get the trains running on time. Just a moment, I’m being handed a note…oh. Never mind.

[Dag_Otto]

If you can saunter, you can mosey.

[Dag_Otto]

@spark240

The audience for Hank, Jr., may wave a rebel flag or two, but it’s meant well, absurd as I know that sounds to you. Their attitudes are not like those you’d find at a neo-Nazi event. F.U.'s parody is not only unfunny, it is simply inaccurate. No wonder it didn’t go over.

No, the parody song didn’t go over well because the redneck audience didn’t have the awareness to understand the significance of the Confederate flag. The neo-Nazis, now they understand their symbols.

Neo-Nazis 1, Rednecks 0

[elucidator]

You can’t mosey in new clothes.

[Alan_Smithee]

@Dag_Otto

If you can saunter, you can mosey.

Well, sure, but that’s like saying you can walk if you can do the Charleston.

I grew up in Arkansas, so I’ve moseyed. Heck, I’ve been known to amble, stroll, ramble and meander. Now my Grandpa, he could saunter like you ain’t never seen, but me, I could never get the hang of it.