EDITORIAL:
The Disney-fication of Country Music

It’s been a year since I last visited the question of whether ‘political correctness’ belongs in country music, or anywhere else for that matter. In the past few weeks, I’ve run into a few conversations which provided a good many comments that seem to prove a frightening number of people have bought into ‘PC-ism,’ hook, line and sinker, something which I found very disturbing. So, I’m going to revisit that topic from a somewhat different angle, and show some of the effects the PC mindset is having on current mainstream country music.

Two recent topics that seem to be stirring a good deal of controversy, (as in "how dare they?"), are a recent piece that aired on CMT on Montgomery Gentry, where in the boys were shown chugging straight from a bottle of whiskey. The other stems from the seemingly fashionable new sport- "Natalie Maines bashing" (to whom I say, keep on singing it loud sister!)- this time regarding comments she’d made about the group’s changing sound, which she attributed to the simple fact that they’ve grown and matured as people, so therefore their tastes and priorities have changed, which is only natural, since they weren’t making music that was geared for children. These two incidents drew the ire of people with such comments as "How can they show such a thing? I can’t let my children see that!," "What’s happened to the wholesomeness of county music where you didn’t have to worry about it being inappropriate for children?," "They are promoting un-Christian values, and they should be boycotted," "Oh, so Natalie thinks she’s too good now, and will only sing adult oriented music?," and the comments went on and on. I really have to wonder though, are these the same people that buy their 8 year olds the undeniably ‘kid friendly’ Shania Twain, and then turn around and rant at her lack of ‘appropriate’ attire on TV?

Ok folks, lets step back and take a good, long, hard look at this. Exactly when was it that country music was ever deemed a wholesome, ‘family oriented’ genre? I thought and thought about this one, and you know what? Up until the mid-90's and the invasion of the ooey, gooey pop schmaltz into the genre, country music was always geared towards ADULTS! The lyrics have always centered around ADULT topics- the complexities of ADULT relationships (whether they be loving, leaving or cheating), ADULT problems- the daily struggles of the poor and working class, trying to support a family, and of trying to keep a job or hoping to find one, and ADULT pass times which DO involve "sinning on Saturday night and being ‘saved’ on Sundays"- drinking, gambling, carousing honky tonks, and generally raising a little hell every now and then.

Someone, anyone, please explain to me how a child can possibly ‘relate’ to songs like "Your Cheatin’ Heart," "I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Long Black Veil," "Knoxville Girl," "In The Jailhouse Now," White Lightning," "Tennessee Whiskey," "Crazy," "Folsom Prison Blues," "El Paso," "Back Street Affair," "Ode To Billie Joe," "Love In The Hot Afternoon," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "Workin’ Man’s Blues," "The Bottle Let Me Down," "Yesterday’s Wine," "Stand By Your Man," "Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ With Lovin’ On Your Mind," "Fist City,""Chiseled In Stone," "Jose Cuervo," "Too Cold At Home," "Here’s A Quarter Call Someone Who Cares," "The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Anymore," "Straight Tequila Night," "Don’t Go Near The Water"...etc., etc., etc. and on and on. GADS!! Then there’s the late Conway Twitty- the all time king of smutty lyrics! "I’d Just Love to Lay You Down," "You’ve Never Been This Far Before," "Tight Fittin’ Jeans"? Thank goodness, outside of a few rare radio stations, Conway’s songs don’t get any airplay these days- those songs could completely corrupt our entire youth!

A look back at these songs leaves me with a few observations. The first one being, that when most of these songs were written and performed, back then ‘family values’ were a heck of a lot stronger and were the primary guiding force, as was morality in general. Somehow, I just don’t recall Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn strutting around in bustiers and hot pants or blouses and gowns slit up to here and down to there. Nor do I recall a Connie Smith or Janie Fricke going on TV talk shows discussing their sex lives, as I see with these so-called ‘family friendly’ faux country acts of today. Nor do I recall artists like Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Willie Nelson or Waylon Jennings cutting off the sleeves of their shirts and wearing skin tight leather pants to show off what buff bods they had, as I see with these so called ‘family friendly’ faux country acts of today. Nor do I recall shows that were more ‘spectacle’ than substance- country singers used to just take the stage and do what they do...SING for their fans. Today, most people under the age of 25, give or take, would probably find it odd, but there was a time not so long ago when artists were able to hold their audience’s attention with the quality of their talent and songs alone, without the aide of lasers, pyrotechnics or choreographed dance routines. But then again, they were singing to adults with an attention span.

Now everyone has their own personal set of morals and sense of right and wrong, along with which artists fall into their comfort zone and those that don’t, and that indeed is a strictly personal choice to which everyone is rightly entitled. On the other hand, the double standards boggle the mind. There’s been a recent rash of contemporary country artists that have had brushes with DUI, along with the aforementioned Montgomery Gentry bottle chugging ‘incident,’ and they’ve been bashed for their "dreadful," "immoral" behavior to the high heavens, and people rant about how they can no longer be deemed "role models." Ok, let’s get down to the not-so-pretty nitty gritty. The highly revered Hank Williams was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Merle Haggard is an ex-con, has been through his own substance abuse problems, and has been married and divorced several times. Ditto the likes of George Jones, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Johnny Paycheck, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Rodriguez, Hank Jr., and a very, very long list of others. They got drunk, they got stoned, they womanized, sometimes they beat up women, they often performed "under the influence," they missed shows, they swapped lovers and wives, and they sang songs about those lives. Yet ironically, no matter how immoral their personal lives, most of them also recorded Gospel albums. Back to that "sinning on Saturday night, and getting saved on Sunday morning" adage. Yep, they made mistakes, some paid with their lives for them, while others learned their lessons. But it just goes to prove that we’re all humans, we sometimes don’t make the best choices, and at times they’re just downright bad choices, but it doesn’t always mean we’re bad people without conscience or any redeeming qualities. They were real people who made mistakes like any other human being, something real people could relate to, unlike the airbrushed perfection of the fantasy world we have today, something unrealistic and unattainable, something which no one can connect to personally or emotionally. Ironic though, that these people condemn Montgomery Gentry with one breath, while they praise Hank or George or Merle with the next. They seem capable of overlooking the sometimes far greater personal shortcomings of some, but not others. The logic here completely eludes me.

I grew up with country music in my house. We heard artists like Roger Miller. We loved when our Dad played Roger Miller, he wrote funny songs like "You Can’t Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd" and "England Swings," that made us laugh. And he wrote some danged catchy melodies that easily appealed to any little kid. One of my favorites was "Chug-A-Lug," and I used to sing along with it. Well, we all know that Roger wasn’t exactly talking about chug-a-lugging his milk in that one, and it was many years later before I ever realized what the words actually meant. As a little kid, you get hooked on the rhymes and melodies, you don’t understand the meaning of the words. Though I also loved songs like "El Paso" and "Big Iron," the stories captivated my young imagination, they were like watching an old western on TV, only they played out in your mind. But the fact still remains, the music wasn’t written for children, who couldn’t even begin to grasp the content or it’s meaning, it was written for adults. Yet oddly, parents never seemed to have a problem with their children hearing these songs, much in the same way as if an old western was on TV, and an inevitable saloon scene came on, where many times cowboys were shown chugging straight from a whiskey bottle, along with a bevy of cleavage baring saloon girls, the TV channel never suddenly got changed. Sure there were things that were off limits, but for the most part, we were exposed to the realities of life, we were raised knowing that it wasn’t always a bed of roses, you don’t always get what you want, and sometimes bad things happen in life, yet the vast majority of us managed to grow up to be undamaged, well adjusted adults.

And as time marches on, we all get older and our priorities change, and the same holds true with the artists that make the music. They too grow and get older along with their fans, and thus their music should mature. Charlie Daniels has changed the lyrics to a few of his older songs he still performs, that make reference to partaking in certain illegal substances. As he said, with age comes wisdom and you live and learn, and as you grow, you outgrow things and move on to a different stage in your life where your way of thinking and your priorities change. Even in rock and roll, The Beatles started out singing the puppy love anthem, "I Wanna Hold You Hand," and nearly a decade later, ended with the soul searching "Let It Be." People were citing "kid friendly" artists like Alan Jackson and George Strait. Sure, both artists have done music that would appeal to kids, but their music is still geared to adults, and lyrically would be beyond their true understanding, just as Roger Miller’s music was. And let’s go back to Strait’s earlier music, when he was famous for double entendre songs such as "The Fireman," "Let’s Get Down To It," "Overnight Male" and the outright provocative "Lover In Disguise." Then there was Alan Jackson’s highly sensual "I’ll Go On Loving You," and "Between The Devil And Me."

Sure, there’s plenty of country music out there that’s benign enough to be considered ‘kid friendly,’ there are even artists that have done country albums specifically geared towards kids, like Riders In The Sky and Waylon Jennings. But things are already bad enough within the country music genre, with mainstream now being geared towards the pop audience and is virtually unrecognizable as country music anymore. Now people are demanding that a type of music that has always been an adult genre, also be made ‘kid friendly’? To those people, I say stop condemning artists that are gearing their music to the audience it is intended for...ADULTS. You have something called parental responsibility. Never assume anything, I’ve seen plenty of questionable programming while surfing past the so called ‘kids channels.’ If you have a problem with your children being exposed to what you feel is ‘inappropriate’ content, then either seek out the more age appropriate country music made specifically for children, feel free to switch the station to Radio Disney, or buy music from performers who specialize in children’s music. But start realizing children are not adults, and while there are many things that can be shared and enjoyed between the two, there are others that can’t and shouldn’t. In healthy relationships between children and adults, both are entitled to their own separate ‘space’- whether it’s time spent with friends, hobbies or entertainment, without the intrusion of the other, and neither should be forced to conform to music that the other cannot relate to, nor should all music be forced to conform universally to both.