I love a lot of the singers mentioned in this thread, but I’d also argue there are a lot of “intelligent” songs in mainstream country music. You don’t have to go to alt-country to find good lyrics. (I’ll let others comment on the orginality of the music.)
Admittedly, most of these are about drinking and cheating, not the great cosmic mysteries of life. (If you want cosmic mysteries, check out Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Du5FguDSzE) But I think they still qualify as intelligent.
Kris Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar, and his songwriting is among the best. One great example is “Loving Her Was Easier Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again.” The instrumentation is understated, but the lyrics are pure poetry - down to earth, you-know-what-he-means-but-wow-what-a-way-to-say-it poetry.
Roseanne Cash’s “Seven Year Ache” is musically, well, not complex so much as rich and splendidly arranged without being overdone, and has intelligent, thought provoking lyrics.
Johnny Lee’s “Prisoner of Hope” and “Cherokee Fiddle,” and the Gatlin Brothers’ “Talkin’ to the Moon” (sorry, no youtube) are others I’d recommend.
As you can imagine, this is but a small sampling. Seek and ye shall find.
Living on the road, my friend, was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron, your breath’s as hard as kerosene
You weren’t your mama’s only boy, but her favorite one, it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye and sank into your dreams.
Well, there’s John Prine and Steve Goodman’s ‘perfect country song’, “You Didn’t Even Call Me by My Name”, in which they attempt to put everything that’s ever been in a country song all into one song. After two verses of cliches, they go into an explanation of the third verse:
I’m from Austin, TX and have listened to country music for as long as I can remember. Below are the names of some darn fine country music songwriters that just might answer that question of any “intelligent” country music existing in this here world of ours: James McMurty, Terry Allen, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Charlie Robison, Doug Sahm, Todd Snider, Bob Schneider, Blaze Foley, Cooder Graw, Cory Morrow and Pat Green(Gosh dang it, if I don’t love these two guys), John Prine,Dale Watson, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earl, Ryan Bingham, David Allan Coe, Doc Watson, Hank Williams 1,2, and 3, Bob Wills, Waylon, Willie, Kristofferson, Cash(father and daughter), Dwight Yoakam(Personal favorite), Gary P. Nunn, Guy Clark. Also you gotta have Strait, Jones, Haggard, Johnny Lee, Neil Young. Also can’t forget Radney Foster, Rodney Crowell, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Roger Creager, Junior Brown, Stone LaRue(Another favorite), Tommy Alverson, Townes Van Zandt. This is a sausage fest list I know and I need to make a whole nother female list I suppose, there’s just so many good female singers out there. I probably did leave a few guys out, but these fellers here form the basis for what I believe country music is all about…and ain’t that what music is supposed to do? Make you laugh, think, and feel good too? Is there any “intelligent” country music out there? Well I’d say that there darn sure is my good sir!
…In the words of Mr. Kristofferson:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Egg Head’s cousin Red Neck’s cussin’ hippies for their hair.
Others laugh at straights who laugh at freaks who laugh at squares.
Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the clan.
Most of us hate anything that we don’t understand.”
Raul Malo, both solo and in The Mavericks, is a great lyricist. My favorite song of his is a love song to tolerance called Matter Much To You. It’s a wonderful antidote to the jingoism and intolerance that infests too much Nashville product.
A lot of these have probably already been mentioned, but lemme dig through my music and pick some good ones. Neko Case, et. al. are great, but you don’t even have to go alt to find good material. I have no faith in anything made post-1992 or so, but the 50s-80s produced some goodies.
Johnny Horton - these songs are very 50s crossover pop-country, but imply that Mr. Horton was a giant history nerd:
John Anderson I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal - a self-aware overly optimistic tune about self-improvement. I prefer the studio version, but can’t find it on Youtube.
Well, as long as we don’t mind some brains with our eggs, I’ll echo a couple of my favorites. I’ll add links to my favorite songs by them so I’m not just going “me too!”
Robert Earl Keen Jr.'s Front Porch Song is the most beautiful and true poem about small towns I’ve ever heard. It’s not just some horseshit about how they’re better than everywhere else. Co-written by Lyle Lovett. Lyle’s If I Had A Boat is one of my favorites, even if I don’t truly understand what he’s singing about.
Townes Van Zandt’s music just ruled all day long. Pancho and Lefty has already been covered here, so here’s some more. White Freightiner Blues is the only song about cocaine I’d ever call smart. When he covers the Rolling Stones’ Dead Flowers, his delivery is heartbreaking. Compared to his, the Stones’ version comes off like a joke song.
I’m not sure where country becomes western or country becomes americana, but Gillan Welch and David Rawlings fit in there somewhere. Ruby is a gorgeous song, and their lyrical influences aren’t your standard country influences. I Wanna Sing that Rock And Roll is about Ralph Stanley thinking that the other side of the musical grass might be greener. Winter’s Come and Gone is just a damn beautiful song.
Gram Parson’s Return of the Grievous Angel shows you can even have an intelligent love song. That Emmylou is singing harmony makes listening to his records just delicious.
Perhaps I’ve missed it, but I’m amazed no one has mentioned Elvis Presley. He was so remarkably versatile, he could go from bein’ a hound dog to walkin’ in the cold Kentucky rain with a suspicious mind. No wonder Robert McCammon has called him “the voice of the American soul” (though I’d rank him second to Johnny Cash).
Some songs that never fail to bring tears to my eyes:
City of New Orleans (maybe not C&W, but definitely folk),
Although, is he country, or alt? Or reggae/dub/folk? His band, Fellow Travellers was pretty amazing for the late 80s/early 90s, fusing all those genres. With some great lyrics.
I agree with all the intelligent lyrics that have been linked. (Hey, I’ve been following this stuff since Townes & Guy played the folkie clubs in Houston.)
But there’s more to country music than lyrics. It’s music–and you can usually dance to it. Western Swing & Honky Tonk were designed for dancing. Nashville was slow to recognize the truth–drums were banned from the Opry for decades & the No Dancing Allowed crowd is still strong there.
If you’re ever in Houston, visit Blanco’s. And Austin’s Broken Spokeis famous; come early for dance lessons.
I’m a little late to the thread, and a lot of their stuff isn’t available anywhere online that I can find, but NQ Arbuckle’s pretty good. The subject matter isn’t always super unique, but they stray away from most of the cliches, and tend to have excellent, somewhat offbeat images to go along with it. Here is a live version of one of their songs that I really, really like. Though the lyrics are slightly different in the album version…
The line “If you’re so goddamn clever, what’re you doin’ with me?” actually uses “fuckin’” instead of “goddamn”
There’s also this oneby them, which includes the lyric “Decked in my perception of fashion/we drink like swaggerts./And then fall like the bookshelves/in the arms of bad girls.”
I did a thesis of sorts on this subject about ten years ago. The preeminent scholar on the matter is Richard Peterson.
His theory is that there has been a shift between “hard core” and “soft core” eras. The soft-core eras are the ones that everyone wants to forget, the ones that are NOT “intelligent,” as the OP asks. But the hard core areas? Oh, man.
When you really study country music, academically, you find out so many interesting things. I’m here to tell you…this cat Jimmie Rodgers…listen, he was Elvis before there was Elvis. Hank Williams? He was Kurt Cobain before there was Kurt Cobain. What we called “country” had so much of the “intelligence” we ascribe to our pop music these days.
It’s an interesting split of things. On the one hand, I would say that it would be a while before mainstream country turned “hardcore” again. Then again, there are a lot of niche links, like the Drive By Truckers and Slobberbone and Whiskeytown and Son Volt and maybe Old 97’s, that would most certainly qualify as hardcore. Maybe the pop elements have move far enough to pop, and the hardcore elements remain, as country or Americana.
