Country Music Then and Now

Have you ever sat and listened to country music? I mean really listened to what was being said and take it all in? Do you feel influenced by the songs? Do you think society influences the song writers and singers or is it the other way around? Does it matter if it is a male, female, or group singer/s? For several decades according to Boot.com the fan favorite has been males. They outrank women singers’ seven to three. However, if you really listen to the words of a country music song one can tell that men and women’s relationships are changing in society.

Country music’s singers and songwriters are often influenced through this.

For instance in 1966 Loretta Lynn wrote a song about her husband cheating on her with another woman. She titled the song “Not Woman enough (to take my man).” The words of the song are a woman telling the other woman that over “her dead body will she take her man away from her.

” The other woman is not “woman” enough to take him away from her and she will stop her from taking her man away. Then jump ahead to 1990 when Garth Brooks released the highly controversial video and song “Thunder Rolls.”

This particular song created a huge buzz when the video was released due to the topic and a small child witnessing the abuse of her mother. The video shows a man cheating on his wife then coming home only to beat the wife with a little girl watching from the stairs.

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The song ends with the abused woman getting a call from the mistress who spills everything. Then the abused woman meets her husband with a pistol and ends his life stating “he won’t do this (to me) again!” Even though Mr. Brooks told everyone the child was not a witness as the scenes were shot separately to protect the child; the video was blocked and people refused to play it due to the violence. At the time people knew violence like this happened, however, they did not want to see it in their entertainment.

When Loretta Lynn released “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in 1970 she was singing about what she knew. This song was Ms. Lynn’s truth at the time of her singing it. It was her story of growing up with a father who worked all day in the coal mines, and how poor they truly were. Now compare this to Reba McEntire’s song released in 2007 called “Every other Weekend.” It’s a story of two people who divorce and meet up “every other weekend” to exchange the kids, and their things. How both adults struggle with the empty house and hearts left behind. Sadly after twenty-six years Ms. McEntire and her husband had decided to divorce in 2015. Reba could have been writing her truth in her song as the couple had one child together but three from her husband’s previous relationship. This just shows how society as a whole is more welcoming to listen to the truth in the singer and songwriter’s lives.

Yet, another example of a woman willing to stay with her cheating man no matter what is Tammy Wynette’s famous song “Stand by your Man.” In Ms. Wynette’s song she says basically “he’s just a man.” That as a woman you need to “stand by your man, (and) give him all the love you can.” No matter what your man puts you through you are to stay true to him and never leave him. To always remember to love him and be good to him. Sadly some critics such as Hilary Clinton criticized Ms. Wynette in an interview with her husband Bill Clinton during in 2016. “You know, I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” she said, while sitting next to her husband Mr. Bill Clinton. Several years later as society has shifted songwriters took notice. In 2005 Carrie Underwood released the popular song “Before he cheats.” In this song Ms. Underwood is singing about a girl who takes a bat to her cheating boyfriend’s truck and beats it up. She is singing “right now he’s probably slow dancing with a bleach blond tramp and he’s probably getting frisky.” While she is out beating up his truck with a “Louisville slugger” and carving her name into his seats he is cheating on her with the “tramp.” Basically telling him next time “think before he cheats!” The song ends with her dropping the truck keys in the cheating man’s drink and walking away a winner. Woman are starting to have a voice and refusing to put up with lying, cheating, and general mistreatments anymore.

The year is 1976 and the boys of country have decided they need a song for themselves about being bad/cheating men. Waylin Jennings and Willie Nelson teamed up to release “Good Hearted Woman.” The duos are singing about how even though “the good life he promised” is no longer there “She loves him in spite of his ways she don’t understand through teardrops and laughter that pass through this world hand in hand.” They are praising the woman who stays through the lies, cheating, lonely nights, and loss of promises. In 2007 Miranda Lambert had a different take on men who are abusive to their women. Ms. Lambert released the song “Gun powder and lead.” The song talks about a man who “slapped my face and shook me like a rag doll, don’t that sound like a real man?” Then it goes on to say she will show him what “real girls are made of, gun powder and lead.” The woman in the song has been abused for the last time and it taking her mistreating husband out once he gets home. This song definitely showed a turning in the opinion of society women bring up the issue of abuse and not allowing it to happen anymore.

A truly sad song released by George Jones in 1980 showed true devotion from one man to one woman. In Mr. Jones’s very popular song “He stopped loving her today” he sings about a man who passes away and finally stopped loving his woman. In the song he says “(he) kept some letters by his bed dated nineteen sixty-two he had underlined in red every single ‘I love you’.” The man was holding out hope that the woman would eventually come back to him. However, upon his passing he finally “stopped loving her.” The song goes on to say how the woman did come to see him “You know, she came to see him one last time aww, ‘n’ we all wondered if she would and it kept runnin’ through my mind ‘this time he’s over her for good’.” Making it sound like the friends had tried to tell the man it was over and to move on and the poor man just could not do it.

Then jump ahead to 2006 and society has made a sharp u-turn to Taylor Swift’s “Picture to burn.” In the song she is calling out a man who clearly “loves yourself more than you could ever love me.” She has realized he is not worth it “So watch me strike a match on all my wasted time as far as I’m concerned you’re just another picture to burn.” She is telling him that she is moving on, he’s just another wasted time and she is over him completely. Taylor Swift offers a very different perspective than the song by Mr. Jones clearly showing that society is making it easier to move on and not get hung up on just one person. If it does not work, simply move on and do not get hung up and hang on to a woman/man who clearly is not for you.

Two songs that clearly show the shifting society are by Kathy Mateo and Garth Brooks. The year is 1987 and Kathy Mateo is releasing the song “18 Wheels and a dozen roses.” “Charlie” has been driving for thirty years and is retiring and after this last run. “But Charlie’s had a good life and Charlie’s got a good wife and after tonight she’ll no longer be countin’ the days.” On his way home he says “Eighteen wheels and a dozen roses ten more miles on his four day run… and he’ll spend the rest if his life

with the one that he loves.” Charlie is very excited to finish his last run and travel with the love of his life. However, Garth Brooks has a song that runs the other way. Mr. Brooks song “Papa loved Mama” released in 1991 tells a different story all together. He sings “Papa drove a truck nearly all his life you know it drove mama crazy being a trucker’s wife the part she couldn’t handle was the being alone I guess she needed more to hold than just a telephone.” The woman clearly can not handle being alone while her husband is out driving a truck for a living. She is partying with other men while he is away to keep the loneness away. The woman was smart is one way “Mama would wait for that call to come in when Daddy’d hang up then she was gone again.” However, the song ends with a tragic ending when “Papa” comes home and “Mama” is no where to be found! The song ends “Well, the picture in the paper showed the scene real well Papa’s rig was buried in the local motel the desk clerk said he saw it all real clear he never hit the brakes when he was shifting gears!” The man was clearly unaware of his wife’s activities but he was putting an end to them that night. It just goes to show that woman do not stay home and wait on their man like they used to. The woman has made he own decisions and steps out of the home more so than in any other decade.

Ms. Mary Bragg a country singer with an album set to debut in 2019 probably does not know about Erving Goffman and his dramaturgical approach. Yet in a recent interview with the website boot.com she had this to say, ‘Having the rug pulled out from under you is never a good feeling, I don’t think people intentionally disguise the real versions of themselves, but slowly, we construct these narratives about who a person is, and what your relationship is.’ Ms. Bragg is clearly using Mr. Goffman’s dramaturgical approach in her statement. The whole perception of a front stage and back stage personality truly comes out in her statement about a former friend.