Facing My Fear of Country Music
February 14, 2020
For this week’s section assignment, I decided to listen to country music. While I debated other genres that would be easier for me, I ultimately decided not to beat around the bush. I hate country music, I just don’t usually relate to the lyrics, a lot of it is very sexist and the beats don’t appeal to me. On top of that I don’t like the southern accent or twang people add to their voice personally, it just doesn’t attract my attention. I’ve never really understood country music or what people like about it. After this week’s lectures, I applied new concepts of song as a unique voice with the ability to propel emotion forward when listening to the song Cowboy Take Me Away by The Dixie Chicks.
The song starts with instruments that create a vision of a barnyard. The combinations of the instruments along with their strong confident high pitch voices portray the visual of a country girl longing for the love of her life to sweep her off her feet just to live a comfortable life close to the man she loves and nature. The idea of nature is more expressed through the instruments, it paints a picture of a farm through the sounds of cowbells, folk instruments and violins paired with the lyrics of her describing how she wants to “touch the earth and grow something unruly” with the cowboy of her dreams. The lyrics describe what the singer wants for her future, what it looks like, how she wants to connect with the Earth, and it transitions to wanting to spend that time with a cowboy. She starts to belt the notes to portray more passion and emotion and the instruments get louder. These are all intentional decisions the artists made to express the emotions of longingness for love that regular speech just couldn’t convey.While I don’t relate to this message, I now feel like I have a better appreciation for their message and format of song.
Overall, country music has its own unique way of connecting to people on an emotional level and manages to create imagery other genres I listen to don’t create. For instance, when listening to rap or rock music I don’t feel like I am being taken to a different location. The whole time I was listening to this song I felt like I was in a barn being serenaded, and I knew exactly what it smelled and looked like. The pretty melodies and combinations of string instruments do a great job of easing my mind and taking me to a different place. While I don’t think I will listen to country music in my free time, I do appreciate this new perspective I have towards the genre.