Whoops…you’re right!
:smack:
One of my friends in Ontario, Canada, suddenly developed that accent when he was born again.
That disassociation is profound.
Identification. The country music they listened to when they dreamed of being country singers had that accent, so they identify it with the music and it’s how they sing.
Mom sometimes watches the Andalusian TV channel, which is available in all of Spain via cable. There’s a program she likes, a contest for copla singers - while foreigners tend to think that “flamenco” equals “Spanish music” and vice versa, Spaniards tend to identify “flamenco” and its sister “copla” with “Andalusia (and parts thereabout, and places which received a lot of immigrants from Andalusia)”. The presenter is an old hand: he’s Andalusian but has a Castilian accent. She was telling me about how recently there was a contestant, very nice voice - and when it was time to rate her, the judges looked slightly confused. One of them finally voiced the problem “but, but… she sang in Spanish! In Castillian I mean!”
The presenter pointed out “so did Doña Concha;” (Piquer, perhaps the biggest copla singer ever) “she was from Valencia, you know.” I’m not a big copla fan myself, but I can name several other big copla singers who were/are not Andalusian and do not use Andalusian accents (if they do, it’s for very specific songs where the rhyme or vocabulary would be wrong in Castillian phonetics).
The judges went redder than the angry smiley, facepalmed and proceeded to give their votes - but they were so used to identifying “copla” with “an Andalusian accent” that they had a serious problem there for a few minutes.
My fifth cousin DJs that show. =P
I’m not a big fan, but as a guitar player I recognize that the genre contains too many top-notch musicians for me to blow it off completely.
I went to a Willie Nelson concert once: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8357337&postcount=30
Point taken, but Toby Keith ranks up there as Chief Sanctimonious Asshat Extraordinaire in my book. Shit, he’s got a song that rubs a woman’s loveless marriage into her face because she didn’t talk to him in high school. And then that other maddeningly catchy tune about how awesome it would be if we could just lynch people without due process. Fuck Toby Keith.
I love country music, but yeah, it can be sanctimonious as hell. My favorite are songs about trucking and rodeo, my favorite artists are George Straight and Garth Brooks. I grew up in the 90s listening to that stuff, it is a completely nostalgic experience for me.
I heard a feature on radiolab (relevant bit starts around 36:00) that really made me think about all the sanctimonious posturing a bit differently. It was about music that crosses borders, and how country music fandom has been spreading like wildfire in places like aboriginal Australia and various countries in Africa. The key insight was that the people who most connected with the music were largely refugees who longed for their homeland, their old way of life. They also found a correlation between the increase in country music’s popularity and the decline of the rural population in the U.S.. So the music is really about longing for a time and a place that no longer exists.
Consider one of the more humble/gentle tunes:
Who grew up like that? I sure as hell didn’t. But I love that song. It taps into a part of my childhood that was safe, and predictable, and comfortable.
Maybe, then, the reason the music is often so defensive and cloying is because the target audience is clinging desperately to an ideal, a culture, that is dying.
Just a thought.
You mean the song he did with Willie? And yet you aren’t busting on Willie, it seems…
I know almost nothing about Willie Nelson and really can’t say shit about him other than I despise that song he sings with Toby Keith. That song pisses me off more than the usual self-righteous drivel because that song is probably one of the most well-written country music songs that’s been released in a while. And it’s not, like, the one song - Toby Keith has released a lot of self-aggrandizing, offensive songs, many of which are pretty good musically. And each and every one of them has some special way of getting under my skin.
Even that cute little song I Wanna Talk About Me has a dark underbelly, when you realize the guy singing it is a raging egomaniac who probably never shuts up about himself.
Waste of some goddamn talent I say. Therefore I respectfully fuck him.
You’re talking about 'Beer for My Horses"? I love that song. I love the way Willie plays his voice like a harmonica. I love that I hear it as 'Whisky for my men before my horses". I really love the way the lyrics roll through and across the music.
I hate that song.
However, Willie Nelson:
The songs tell how Pancho fell
And Lefty’s living in a cheap hotel
The desert’s quiet and Cleveland’s cold
And so the story ends, I’m told …
So I can forgive Willie for making that nasty little song.
Of course, “The Ballad of Pancho & Lefty” was written by Townes Van Zandt. Willie & Merle put Townes in their video of the song. Willie knew all about a Texas songwriter going to Nashville to make his fortune; he was strong & knew when to return to Texas because the Nashville PTB’s thought he was too funny looking & sang too weird to ever become a real star. Alas, Townes wasn’t that tough.
Read about How Willie Nelson & Charlie Pride integrated East Texas.
There’s a shitload more to say about Willie. But people who seriously don’t care about country music don’t bother me. Somebody’s got to support John Tesh.
…aand that’s one cold beer from me, your choice, should we ever chance to meet in person. You’re a class act.
I can just imagine that woman hearing that song on the radio and changing the station, thinking, “I knew there was a reason I wouldn’t give that guy the time of day back in high school. Man, what an asshole.”
I really want to read your Willie Nelson link about integrating East Texas, but it won’t work for me.
Thanks! That was really interesting. I can’t imagine the tension in that club that night.
Not a real fan of the current Big Hat/Big Hair Nashville ‘product’ these days. Having played in a few country/country rock/progressive country bands, I can say that the backing musicians sure have serious chops - the front people…not so much. To be fair, it’s more the material, presentation & glitz that skeeves me out.
Try Iris DeMent (quirky voice but genuine talent) or Gillian Welch (alt-country?).
I don’t listen to country music much, but I do like Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter. More folk than country, I’d say, but then I’m not sure how much that distinction stands up. Wouldn’t ‘real’ country music be the epitome of folk?
BTW, Olivesmarch, I thought your post was beautifully written…