Just a little bit country
At some point, after moving to East Tennessee, I gingerly turned the radio dial to a country station and boy was I surprised. The songs were fun, the musicianship was fantastic, and while the themes sometimes trouble me, it wasn't anything I had feared it would be. I've always been an omnivore of music, and can find something of interest in everything except Webern and later Schoenberg. I ended up feeling like I missed an important train, because country might be the style I was always supposed to write. Pop music rarely welcomes me, but country does. In country, it's okay to tell a story, it's okay to have a good singing voice, and clever lyrics are welcome. It's still formulaic as hell, and some of the "good ole American values" in country songs are driven home in ways I don't like.I now believe that a lot of country music is pop music with a cowboy hat on, but there are also musical traditions and theoretical distinctives under the surface that I