Listen, I’m all-in for a good love story. My favorite movie is The Notebook so I definitely acknowledge the space I’ve left open in my heart for these sappy kind of love songs and movies. In fact, I’ve been listening to “Lady In Red” on repeat for an embarrassing amount of days lately. I’m sure there’s a part of me that is bitter from past relationships– sometimes I repeat the line from that Elvis song “Where Did They Go, Lord?” …the heart that’s within me isn’t bitter, it’s just empty. There’s something vulnerable and fragile and honest about that line that I can relate to.
But then a country song pops up and makes me feel justified in thinking that sometimes country music, with all its good intentions, just sucks. I give you Exhibit A.
It might be that I despise the singing list of clichés:
I hope you keep on laughing
With our crazy, beautiful kids
Keep dancing like we do
Underneath the moon…
Are they crazy AND beautiful… or crazy beautiful? The song is so gray. Please just put me out of my misery! It baffles me that a genre of music can be so wide in its offerings, too. On the one hand it has snooze-worthy songs (like this one from Chris Lane), but then you’ll hear Benjamin Tod and your faith in humanity, which is often hanging by a thread, is at least given another day of life support.
So when people ask me, I can’t honestly say I like country music or else I run the risk of them thinking I listen to Morgan Wallen, Shaboozey, and Tyler Hubbard. Don’t get me wrong, I can endure songs by those artists but only if I’m tied to a chair and someone is trying to waterboard information out of me. I’m stubborn enough to suffer for a righteous cause (assuming whatever secret I’m keeping is worth that level of torture). I’m much more likely to enjoy country singers like Lainey Wilson, Miranda Lambert, and Eric Church than ever choosing to play a whole song by Thomas Rhett, Kane Brown, or Jason Aldean.
Being a loving husband and father is a great, admirable, and hard thing. I’m not trying to take away from that aspect of the song’s message. But I’m just so sick of the softness. It almost comes across like a promo for the emasculation of the men our dads and granddads are. Men with rough hands who come to the dinner table with oil-stained clothes and an air of confidence. Men you’d go to when fit hits the shan, if you will. These men can be romantic, sure, but they’re not singing songs about an ocean view somewhere in Timbuktu because 1) he would never admit he doesn’t know where the ocean view is, 2) how to get there, 3) how long it’ll take, and 4) he’s already filled up the gas tank for the trip.
If I die before you
I hope you get on an airplane
And take in that ocean view
Somewhere in Timbuktu…
🤮
-Out of the Wilderness
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Out of the Wilderness 
You are a hysterically funny and very talented wordsmith.
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oh gosh, I don’t know about all that but thank you!
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