9/13/2023 0 Comments Sad country songs about growing up![]() history that saw fierce clashes over what kind of country we had become-or might yet be.Ĭountry Music takes up his abiding question in less obviously political ways. Much the same could be said about Prohibition or The Vietnam War, which both recount chapters in U.S. “I make the same film over and over again,” he said, “each one asking a deceptively simple question: ‘Who are we?’” It’s obvious how this might apply to a documentary like The Civil War. But I kept coming back to them when, during a recent interview, he explained what held together all of his work. Unsurprisingly, such sentiments were not a part of the promotional material for Ken Burns’s new documentary, Country Music. ![]() Its political expression might be called solidarity. The only sustaining response to this is something like mercy. This is a different way of thinking about what we all share: a recognition that we’re united by how easily we can ruin our lives, or have our lives ruined, and how quickly everything we love can be lost. Country music can remind us that there’s “a dark and a troubled side of life”-not just that the world we’ve built leaves so many exploited and struggling, but that this can never be divorced from our own weakness and frailty, our cheatin’ hearts, which no amount of progress can do away with. Behind any politics is a certain view of the world, what you take to be fundamentally at work in this vale of tears. Maybe that’s why my friends on the left and I also receive sustenance from country. Country music is not always sad, but its best songs are. His love for country now seems like a lesson in the way we can never really know the wounds carried even by those we’re closest to.Ī songwriter once told me, “If it ain’t sad, it probably isn’t true.” The good times take care of themselves, demanding not answers or explanation but simple enjoyment it is when we suffer that we look to art, perhaps especially music, to articulate the pain we can’t speak about directly. After a few beers, he’d make sweeping pronouncements about lazy bosses or incompetent political leaders, resentments he nursed over the course of his life. I realized that my grandfather drank too much, and I wondered what injustices had been inflicted on him. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become convinced there’s more to it. Intellectuals on the left have always had a complicated relationship to those they theorize about, and country music offers a way into the experiences of others. I’m sure part of it was that country music actually depicts the lives of working people that’s one reason my friends, who mostly are not from the working class, listen to it as well. I never asked my grandfather what he heard in country music. He’d provide running commentary on whatever the radio was playing-a not very politically correct appreciation of Charley Pride, say, or that Willie Nelson had always been a friend of blue-collar folks. After retiring from his job as a welder, he spent hours in the garage he’d built, drinking beer and listening to country music with his head under the hood of his pickup truck. I remember my grandfather’s Conway Twitty records, and the time he announced that “Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog” was Johnny Cash’s finest song. For me at least, country music was part of growing up working class. I’m not sure if this should be surprising or not, given how often it’s associated with conservative politics-“we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way,” and all that. Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson in 1988 (Beth Gwinn/Getty Images)Īfter living in New York City for a few years, I noticed something about my closest friends among writers and editors on the left. They're perfect to listen to while working outside, hosting friends and family for a party at your own farmhouse or barn, or on a farm-focused road trip to check out the country's best pumpkin farms, prettiest sunflower fields, and most charming Christmas tree farms.Politics flattens, but the best country music invites us into people’s complex and contradictory lives. If you're looking for more country tunes to add to your playlist, be sure to checkout our lists of summer country songs, country love songs, and country beach songs. There are somber ballads about the difficulties of modern farming and upbeat tunes about the simple joy of riding a tractor through the fields. We've rounded up the best songs about farming, from early hits like John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" to more recent recordings, like Travis Tritt's must-see live performance of "Where Corn Don't Grow," at The Franklin Theatre in Tennessee. ![]() Others praise the natural beauty of life on the farm, while some simply admire the hard work and grit it takes to be a farmer. Many country artists, like Luke Bryan, grew up on a farm and draw musical inspiration from first-hand experience tending the land. Country music and farming have always gone hand-in-hand.
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