Word in the Woods #3: Ramblings about Country Music
BY IAN WOODE
US 23 is the main vein where laborers poured out of the Kentucky coalfields after World War II, looking for work up north in Cincinnati, Detroit, and points east and west. Despite its history as a main escape route from rural poverty, the Commonwealth of Kentucky elected not to call this four-lane thoroughfare by its historical name — The Hillbilly Highway.
For marketing purposes, The Country Music Highway has a better ring to it — it might incline Margret and Stephen from Rhode Island to take a detour off I-64 while they’re on their way to visit their kids at the University of Tennessee.
“Oh honey, it’ll be fun,” Stephen says to Margret, who is having a case of the GIRD after eating a pepperoni roll in West Virginia.
“Let’s just get to Lexington,” she says, lying back and burping.
“But it says in the pamphlet you can tour Loretta Lynn’s home place. Plus, there’s a museum in Paintsville!”
To be honest, if I hadn’t driven that stretch of nothing hundreds of times, I’d fall for the marketing, too. Check out the Kentucky Tourism Department’s ad copy on this 144-mile piece of mountains and coal trucks:
The hills and hollows surrounding US 23, The Country Music Highway have produced more hit country stars than any other region per capita. Home to stars such as Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, the Judds, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tom T. Hall, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, and Patty Loveless, this highway overflows with melody. Travel 144 miles over the US 23 Country Music Highway through seven counties of Kentucky’s Appalachian region, and its music will sing through your memories long after your journey has ended.
I’m not ragging on US 23.
In a lot of respects, it’s a beautiful drive. She can be as treacherous as West Virginia’s Corridor G in the wintertime, but under a blue summer sky, the lush green hills can almost bring a tear to your eye. If I had a Kentucky fishing license, I might check out a few of the creeks and lakes along the way. But to make it out like it’s fucking Nashville is plain ole false advertising.
Except for the Louisa Birdhouse. That, my friend, is probably one of the greatest roadside attractions west of Hawks Nest’s Mystery Hole. Whenever I’m riding down that stretch, without fail I pull in there and take a shit.
The Birdhouse is a gas station/Taco Bell.
Up until about a year ago, that Taco Bell was still in the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” dog era — green and yellow pastels splattered about the hard-plastic tables. The menu at the counter was literally the type where you push letters into a sleeve — no digital. They did have one of those fancy touchscreen pop machines: a piece of the future surrounded by 1994. Thankfully, even after the remodel, the shitter still had the same color scheme that’s been there since Clinton played sax on Arsenio Hall.
The adjacent Exxon isn’t nothing to write home about, sans the small cigar humidor across from the counter. Oh, and they have Grippo’s — if you like a little kick in your BBQ chip, Grippo’s is the way to go. While it’s on my mind, I’d like to give y’all a multi-state lunch idea: a bag of Grippo’s from Cincinnati, paired with a Rogers and Mazza’s Pepperoni Roll from Clarksburg, WV, and a glass bottle of Ale-8 from Winchester, KY, to wash it all down.
No wonder I gotta shit at the Birdhouse.
Either way, what’s cool about the Birdhouse is what they got hanging on the walls. All around the gas station and the Taco Bell is shit like Elvis’ shirt and Ricky Skaggs’ receipt from when he bought a Chalupa in 1997. There’s Loretta Lynn’s gloves and a tissue Billy Ray Cyrus blew his wad in back in ’88. It’s cool the first time you go in there — after the 10th time, you want that handicap crapper because you’ll run elbows into the walls of the regular stalls when you go in for that power squat. They could dig up Patsy Cline and stick her skeleton behind a glass case, and all you’d really want is to get ahead of that scratch-off fanatic with the twitchy eye (looking to see how badly he lost the Power Ball Wednesday night), so you can get your pack of Pall Malls and get the hell on down the road to Pikeville.
Somehow the luster of these country music relics is lost when the sole reason you enter the Birdhouse is to buy a 5-layer burrito, hold the sour cream.
And like the Taco Bell Cravings Menu, country music is filled with saw dust and horse meat. Turn on a Country station and listen to what they’re shilling out these days — pop might be a good value combo, but country is the fucking dollar menu.
Loretta Lynn, in a bit of a Nietzschean moment, recently declared that Country Music is Dead and It Is We Who Killed It.
OK, maybe I’m exaggerating.
The Coal Miner’s Daughter did say she thought the “genre was completely lost” because too many artists are trying to go for that crossover appeal. Now, Lynn mentioned pop, but you can’t help and wonder if Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” got under her skin.
Before y’all start writing your Senators, I’m not saying Loretta is a racist. She’s been talking shit about genre blending for years — before Lil Nas X hit puberty. I don’t believe her comments were pointed toward him.
But the idea of “Genre Purity” is what the record industry certainly used to bat Lil Nas X’s smash hit out of the Country/Western charts. For those of you who don’t remember the details, back in March 2019 “Old Town Road” fans essentially took radio DJs hostage and forced them to play the song if they wanted to see their families again — producing an ear-worm in every Mom’s car because the goddamn tune is so catchy to children. The song was climbing both the R&B/Rap chart and the Hot Country chart for Billboard 100.
Right before the song hit #1 on the country chart, Billboard decided “Old Town Road” didn’t hit enough check-marks to be considered country. So they pulled it off the chart.
Is the song more rap than country? The lyrics are probably more country than anything I’ve heard released in the last decade. Harking back to images of cowboys, horses, and tractors, “Old Town Road” takes queues not from Toby Keith and Garth Brooks, but from fucking Marty Robbins and Gene Autry. I’d argue, lyric for lyric, “Old Town Road” tips its cowboy hat to the greats much more than any watered-down bullshit Kenny Chesney has ever put out.
Lil Nas X himself has called it “Country Trap,” stating the song transcends the two genres. That’s all very good. Billboard can run its organization however it wants. But let’s look at its record.
Cole Swindell’s “Chilling it” incorporates rap elements — half the song is spoken word. Billboard let it peak at #5 on the Canadian Country Charts and #28 on the Hot 100 Chart. “Boys Around Here” by Blake Shelton took #2 on the Hot Country Chart, a song with a fucking rap refrain. Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem” took #1; it’s basically Dad Rap.
At this point, I’ll ask the readers to print pictures of Lil Nas X, Cole Swindell, Blake Shelton, and Jason Aldean. Line them up and examine them to spot the difference. I’ll wait.
Let’s put the “Old Town Road” debate aside and consider the phrase “pure country music.”
Has it ever been pure? For the love of fuck, Johnny Cash — my absolute favorite — has clear influences of rock & roll in his music. He’s one of the definers of rockabilly. Is Dolly Parton’s “9-to-5” a country song or a 70s pop tune? The Statler Brothers were a fucking gospel outfit when they started counting flowers on the wall.
I’m no country music historian, but I can tell you, the genre really didn’t gain ground until the late 40s — it’s the bastard child of bluegrass, the blues, cowboy swing, gospel, and other working-class music.
Country music is about as pure as a West Virginia Brown Dog, that fucking mutt that roams off the neighbors’ property and chases cars. Is it a pit or a beagle? Nobody knows.
So Loretta Lynn is right on the one hand — country is dead. But it ain’t the genre blending killing it.
The first time I visited the Birdhouse, I convinced a friend to skip work to ride with me down to Pikeville. It was a clear blue September Saturday, so I didn’t want to waste the weekend lounging around the public housing apartment I was holding down for some Black guy for $400 a month. I’d been paid from my temp job about $600 that week — I’d put down some OT — and I had my Ford Taurus tip-topped.
Originally, I wanted to go where it all began — Corbin. But my buddy needed to be at work by 5 pm, when his ole lady would pick him up, so that he wouldn’t get an earful about playing hooky, again; he signed over his check to her every payday, and she’d noticed he was missing 8 hours on his stub. Pikeville was a good option — the only time I’d ever been there before was during a midnight, mania-induced drive with a drug addict I was dating, me dressed in a wool coat and a Marine Officer’s cap, the emblems switched for Soviet peasants.
All I recall from then was being impressed by the town having buildings taller than three stories. Also, I almost splattered a dog banging 90 mph on US 23.
So a daylight ride made the trip worth it, even if all I found there were bear statutes standing as sentries on the corners of the barren streets.
Once you turn south of Catlettsburg, the dining options on US 23 evaporate — your only stop before Louisa is a Marathon Station with a crap-inducing hot lunch deli. Hunger had us by the Birdhouse, and since we didn’t have the scratch (nor the stomach) for the Hardee’s across the road, Taco Bell it was.
We ordered grillers off the dollar menu and crammed them down our gullets in the Ricky Skaggs booth. I’m not going to lie, we talked shit. We talked shit as we wandered the restaurant, looking at the sun-bleached fringe gloves Lynn once wore. We talked shit stepping into the Exxon, viewing a microphone Johnny Cash once held. We laughed as we saw the missing strings on Billy Ray Cyrus’ guitar. Though we held a modicum of millennial irony, we took in the exhibits like a church group from Des Moines at the Smithsonian.
When we left, I shed my shirt and rolled down the windows. The wind hit my chest as we passed the signs listing every country star from each county we traveled through, listening to the crackly country stations strumming through the bent antenna on the hood of my car.
“Can we change it to something else?” my buddy begged. “Fucking Tobey Keith sucks.”
“You don’t talk shit on Tobey Keith,” I shouted, over the wind. “This is The Country Music Highway, goddammit and we’re listening to country.”
You don’t talk shit on Tobey Keith.
That’s a refrain I’ve been shouting for years, ever since I was drinking bourbon with a goofy looking fucker named Johnny from Boone County. We were talking Country — talking the greats, like Waylon, Cash, and Haggard — when I said:
“You know, I don’t think Tobey Keith is too bad. He ain’t no Cash, but I can get into him.”
Johnny cackled, wheezing Tobey’s name over and over. I grabbed the bottle and took a swing.
“You don’t talk shit on Tobey Keith!”
And you really don’t.
Personally, Tobey Keith is the antithesis of everything I stand for — sappy patriotism, rural conservatism, dollar store nostalgia — but damn if he ain’t catchy. Listen to “Beer for My Horses” and tell me that shit don’t get stuck in your head. “I Love this Bar” was one of my favorite anthems in my drinking days. “American Soldier” and “Who’s that Man” get me misty-eyed.
Just like how that beefy nacho griller and chicken quesadilla filled my stomach.
It’s a fucking refrain I’ve heard in offices and job sites, in the work van or at a desk, from men and women young and old: “I like country music, but I don’t like that new shit they’re playing these days.”
And then they’ll turn around, tune into a country station and listen to the latest drool from Brantley Gilbert. No matter how terrible it gets, they won’t turn it — hell, I won’t turn it off. Because today’s country — or should I say, today’s radio country — is fast food for the soul.
Music feeds a part of us; I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have music in their life. I’ve known plenty of guys who’ve never set foot in an art museum, perhaps haven’t read a novel since high school. Personally, I’m never up on television or film. We can live without certain mediums — but for someone to hate music, that’s a strange bunny. Music, particularly lyrical songs, fills an appetite inside us. It reflects our feelings — a sad song can console a depression, an upbeat, hell-raising song can pump us up. Though I’m an avid reader, I can count on my hands how many books have shook me to my core — but I can bang out a list of 20 songs that have done the same trick.
Today’s country still fills us, but it leaves us hungry. For every “Whiskey Lullaby” there’s at least 10 “American Kids.” The former is like a steak; it’s tasty, it’s satisfying, and a listen will hold you for a while. The latter is a McDouble you’re promptly shitting out 2 hours after consumption — it’s relatable, but forgettable.
If all I ate all day was McDoubles, I’d come to hate beef, too.
Same with country.
What’s killing country is the cheapening of country. Maybe you expect it out of The Haint, but let’s face it — capitalism is killing country. How many hits can we pump out? Is this star palatable for the average country consumer? Will the song be controversial? If the right check-marks are hit, you bet your ass it’s getting played on the radio.
See, Lil Nas X was a major challenge to the formula, not because of what he did — “Dirt Road Anthem” predated Lil Nas X by seven years. The audience obviously doesn’t mind genre blending — fuck, I’ve been known to turn up “Dirt Road Anthem” myself. If the audience wanted “Pure Country,” it wouldn’t have shot to the top of the chart.
It’s who Lil Nas X is.
If you’ve done my singer photo exercise, you’ll notice Lil Nas is black, while the other musicians are white. Is race at play? Fuck yes. But I think dollar bills were the bigger threat. Nashville doesn’t think you, the audience, is ready for a black man. Sure, Darius Rucker — but Hootie and the Blow Fish is probably one of the whitest bands since the B-52s. A black gay man? That’s controversial, that could lead to a boycott. After all, the executives think, if them rednecks will quit watching the football — which we all know Christ Himself invented with the 12 apostles on Palm Sunday — over black men taking a knee during the anthem, they’ll download Nickelback instead of Dirks Bentley.
Dolly Parton, as much as I love her, sets the tone for Nashville when she says she wants to stay out of politics. It makes business sense. So I’d be remiss not to state the obvious here: a black gay man seizing the top of the country charts is an inherently political act. Though he may not have done it for political reasons — hell, from my research, I don’t think he believed “Old Town Road” would blow up like it did — identity makes it political.
Lil Nas X represents an insurrection in Country Music — if he could take #1, then Lordy, Lordy, country is no longer a white man’s game. And that scared the shit out of the powers at be — because change means controversy and controversy means cutting into the bottom line.
When it comes to tastes, change scares me too. I was content for years upon years eating chicken quesadillas at Taco Bell, but I had an existential crisis when my ole lady wanted me to try sushi. Once I did, I still eat Taco Bell, but I don’t try to make up an excuse for skipping out on a sushi night.
If you want “real country music,” if you want country music that will fill that hole in your soul, you gotta dig for it. Loretta Lynn needs to enjoy her old age — country music is no more dead than she is. The radio is The Enemy, a lying serpent that will make you think country begins and ends with Garth Brooks. Let us instead consult the Country Music Bible: “For God so Loved Country Music, He gave us his own gay Son, Orville Peck, that whosoever listeneth to him should not turn to hate for the genre, but have ever lasting ballads.”-Johnny 3:16
Was Orville Peck sent from God to restore Country Music to its former glory? Probably not — but Peck’s debut album is one of those musical moments that touched something inside of me. After repeatedly listening to “Turn to Hate” and “Hope to Die” on YouTube, my ole lady bought the vinyl off the Internet. The day it came in the mail, we held each other on the couch and listened to it straight through.
Peck’s ballads speak frankly about gay affairs, soulful songs of sorrow and solace, about the happiness of being held in a man’s arms, about having him turn around and break your heart. I’ve been there — with all kinds of partners — and it got me in my feels. Even for straight, middle-aged men, Peck has something to offer; he doesn’t look like them, he doesn’t act like them, but he’s himself.
And that’s what country music is about: authenticity.
In that way, it’s a cousin to rap — the realer the music, the more it reflects the lived experience of the singer, the higher it lifts one’s soul. Listen, I’ve never lived in the inner-city, I’ve never had to dodge bullets and sell crack to survive — the subject matter of some rap is hard for me to relate to. But the loneliness you feel in Tupac’s lyrics, that’s something I can feel. Just like Johnny Cash — I can feel his loneliness too, even when I can’t relate to prison and war.
Peck hits me in my gut, because I know what it’s like to be a country bisexual, to feel different, to feel as if I can’t be me without worrying about being killed. That authenticity, of saying “Here I Am” is what we search for in music. Some songs just hit closer to home.
Like Tyler Childers — his jigs about addiction, poverty, and Appalachia hit me. I know what’s like to waste away at the teat of a bottle. To lose my mind, my partner, and my job over a handful of pills and a case of beer. I know what it’s like to struggle. Childers is real to me.
The degeneration of country is similar to the degeneration of rap — the cheapening is the loss of authenticity. To show how people actually live, to show how “the good times” might not be so good, that challenges people. It’s safer to make it a formula — strip whatever experience from the music and leave the bare bones.
But The Haint isn’t interested in safe. We think the freaks and geeks of country are what’s going to save the music.
