I’m coming out. I am not a big country music fan. In fact it really irritates me. If I had choice between:

A. Listening to Zac Brown

B. Slowly inserting chili infused tooth picks into my eyeball with one hand, whilst simultaneously masturbating with lime marinated sandpaper using the other.

I would chose B.

I guess it’s a cultural thing and it’s all about what you’ve grown up with but there something parochial and unsophisticated – to me – about a lot of country music I hear. I know, I sound like a right snob. Case in point I heard a song the other day where one line in the chorus as the singer spouted about things he liked included:

‘A pair of jeans that fit just right’

Well I guess it’s the simple things right? As long as my Levi’s fit right then everything is good in the world. In a world of trauma, hardship, mental strife, broken hearts and death, as long as the jeans fit right we have nothing to worry about? Yes, it’s they lyrical equivalent of a shallow bucket of piss. After Googling the lyric, I found that it was indeed Zac Brown and his song ‘Chicken Fried’ .

He also liked – Country tropes here – the sunset, a cold beer, fried chicken, peacan pie, the love of a good woman and the Stars and Stripes. He didn’t mention pick up trucks, guns or Bud Lite? I mean of course, being originally from England, I guess I am not his core demographic. Most of the country songs I hear also hark back to these similar themes of the simple things in the typical American life. A life of freedom in the American heartland, sitting on the porch, Ford truck parked out back, sipping a Cors lite whilst looking out at the horses on the prarie.   

Of course, I don’t have these reference points. Hearing country music makes me think of Morrisey’s lines in The Smiths’ ‘Panic’

“Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life”

Of course, as it’s culturally specific, the music of The Smiths more accurately portrays my own experience growing up in the UK. One of sexual frustration, boredom, monotomy and where every day was like Sunday.