Country Music

Anyone who knows me knows that I despise country music. I don’t use the word “despise” lightly. In the Official Book of Dieter’s Vocabulary (not available in stores…yet) the word “despise” is reserved for items and subjects to which I passionately hate with such vehemence that it induces physical illness and anger.

Lately, at work, I have been sentenced to listening to hours of country music. I have been contemplating a boycott or a one-man strike. If I didn’t have a family to feed, I would walk out because I despise country music that much.

Back in the early days of America, when country music was young, it defined a lifestyle; the cowboy working the herds, the farmer toiling in the fields or the blue-collar worker slaving over barrels of Jim Bean at the distillery. These people worked hard and described their hardships through earthy, folksy music with guitars, violins, gin bottles and harmonicas. Their hard lifestyle afforded them the right to complain.

Let’s take a look at today’s country music. Almost every country song these days is about love. Yeah, that’s original, love. Whether it’s a lover, son, brother, mother, dog or pick-up truck, it’s all about love. What about today’s country music singer? Are they working their hearts out to make a living in the fields, on the ranch or in a distillery? NO. These so-called musicians primp themselves up with “Country Clothes” to look like they are come from the hard lifestyle. Give me a break. The hardest part of their job is having to decide which bottle of vino to pop open in their modified Ford F350 limo (complete with store-bought steer horns on the grill).

The majority of Country Music fans are urban dwelling people, who rarely break a sweat at work, have never been on a horse outside of the pony ride at the fair and whose concept of the origin of alcohol is “It came from the liquor store”. These are the same country music fans that wear Stetsons in their Geo Metros and Ford Festivas. They often wear Wrangler jeans that are so tight, they can’t sit normally and have the Wrangler “W” imprinted on their butt-cheeks.

Not to disrespect those hard working people who still wrestle cattle, farm stuff or who still work in the Jim Bean plant. You have my utmost respect. You should be ashamed of the music whose roots were founded in the hard work of your occupational forbearers.