What Country Music can Teach us About Storytelling
10 songs that prove the overlooked genre is on to something.
Let me preface by saying that I don’t really care if you like country music a lot (I do care). But you can’t tell me with a straight face that Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me video isn’t the greatest music video of all time. You’d be a liar — and dead wrong.
But the thing about country music is that it does short form storytelling better than any other genre. These songs tell beautiful stories about love, romance, heartbreak, etc. all in less than four minutes. No other musical genre does it that well, and I’ve got a list of songs for you to listen to to prove it.
Have you ever heard of the saying that if you can’t condense whatever it is you want to talk about to less than one page, then you don’t truly know or understand what you’re talking about? Country music has absolutely figured out and mastered this rule. It shows that crazy depths of emotion can be portrayed with just a few, impactful words.
Storytelling doesn’t just apply to the music or movie or book industries. It’s becoming important across the board, in business and entrepreneurship. Here are 10 songs that prove that country music storytelling is the best in any biz — and they don’t even need music videos. It was genuinely difficult for me to keep this list to just 10. If you care about good lyrics and good storytelling, you have to appreciate country music — even if you (sigh) don’t like it.
Summary: This song takes us across multiple generations in just three and a half minutes. We start with a couple who is expecting a child and the father wants a boy but gets (you guessed it) an all-American girl. And he loves her. Then his little girl grows up and falls in love with the high school football star, who falls right back in love with the all-American girl. And finally, they get married and are expecting a child, but this time the husband wants an all-American girl, just like his wife. It’s a heartwarming and happy song with a cute story.
2. Greatest Love Story by LANCO
Summary: Listening to Greatest Love Story is like watching a classic romantic comedy in rapid time. We start with a couple in high school who are madly in love and sure they will be together forever. But she moves away for college and he stays in their hometown, and the two split up. In college, she has a new boyfriend but that doesn’t work out. Four years after she first left, she comes back home and grabs drinks with her high school ex. It turns out they both still have feelings for one another, and the two wind up engaged by the end.
3. Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band
Summary: I feel like this song doesn’t even need explaining, since everyone should already know it. As the title so greatly explains, the Devil goes down to Georgia to look for a soul to take. He finds a young boy playing the fiddle and challenges him to a fiddle duel. If the Devil wins, he gets to take the Johnny’s (the young boy) soul, but if Johnny wins, he gets the Devil’s golden fiddle. In the end, Johnny wins.
Summary: The fact that this song was never made into a music video is appalling because it would have made a fantastic short film. Taylor Swift shows up to either an ex or her friend’s wedding to put a stop to it. We hear her pause by the bride’s room, yelling at her friends and wearing a dress that Swift doesn’t think the boy she likes would like. She hides in the church and disapproves of the music selection and the way the bride walks down the aisle, hoping that the groom wishes the bride were her. Finally when the preacher asks if anyone objects to the marriage, Swift stands up and apologizes for barging into the wedding, but she loves the groom and doesn’t want him to marry the wrong girl. He meets her by the back door of the church and is happy that she got him out of the situation and it can be hypothesized that the two live happily ever after.
5. Watching You by Rodney Atkins
Summary: This song is a super cute tale of a husband raising his son. While he’s in the car with his son, the little boy spills his chicken nuggets and mutters a certain four letter word that begins with an “S.” His dad, concerned, asks where he learned that word and the boy responds that he wants to be just like his dad and has been watching him so that he can. Later that night, the son prays before bed and his father is surprised he knows how to pray, but the son reminds him that he wants to be just like him so he’s watching him. The dad tears up because he realizes how important his actions are and he loves his son so much.
6. You’re Gonna Miss This by Trace Adkins
Summary: There’s a teenage girl, and like every teenage girl, she cannot wait to be 18 and leave for college. Her mom drops her off at school and tells her that she is going to miss what she has right now. We flash forward and she has just gotten married and moved into a new apartment. Her dad starts by and she talks about having babies and buying a house. Much like her mom, her dad tells her that she is going to miss what she has right now. We flash forward again and she is living in a house with a dog, two kids and a lot of chaos, when the plumber comes over. She apologies for the chaos and the plumber, with two adult children, tells her that she is going to miss what she has right now. This song came on the radio the day after I had gotten accepted to college hundreds of miles away from my family, and I remember having to pull over because I couldn’t see through my tears.
7. Good Directions by Billy Currington
Summary: Billy Currington is busy working on his truck in a small town when a lost girl shows up, lost and looking for directions. He told her where to go to get on the interstate, and where to stop for a drink before she continues onward. He ends by saying that if she took a right instead of a left, she’d end up back where he is. In his mind, he’s sure she didn’t like him at all — her license plate says Hollywood, after all. But he looks up and see her car coming back, and the woman professes that she stopped for his recommended drink and something felt right so she’s staying.
8. Break Up in the End by Cole Swindell
Summary: This tearjerker is a flashback song of Cole Swindell looking back at the girl who got away. It’s too easy to regret past loves and wish the heartbreak away by wishing it never happened. Instead, Swindell says he would go back over and over and do it again, even knowing that they’d break up in the end. He’d still meet her in the bar for the first time and stay until 2am. He’d still introduce her to his parents, tell her he loves her and move in with her. He’d still share his favorite songs and ruin them because now all he hears is her singing them. He’d still let her in if she was lonely for one night, knowing the outcome.
Summary: In each chorus, we flashback to when Brett Young first saw Olivia Mae and how he was immediately able to see their future together. Love at first sight. In the first verse, he asks her if her can take her to get coffee or a drink. It must have gone well, because in the second verse, they’ve celebrated on year together and it’s the best year of his life. In the bridge, we hear Young ask what she has planned for the rest of her life. It wraps by saying how Olivia Mae is the most beautiful thing Young has ever see in white.
10. Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not by Thompson Square
Summary: This song is about a pretty sassy and forward female (you go girl) who is not putting up with her boy’s nerves. The two start on a date, talking all night and he wanted to kiss her, but was quite nervous until she says “Are you gonna kiss me or not?” The two wind up dating and he wants to propose, so he buys a ring and gets down on one knee, and her response? “Are you gonna kiss me or not?” They plan out the wedding and at the ceremony, the two say I do, the boy lifts the veil and this time he’s the one to say “Are you gonna kiss me or not?”
I think I have proven my point, but if you’d beg to differ, I am ready to debate it. Trust me, there’s more where these 10 came from.
Thanks for reading! :) Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter for more: @hayleymm14
