November 11, 2007
"Country music lyrics, ..., are often intentionally ludicrous, and wildly inventive. On the subject of love: “Her teeth were stained but her heart was pure”; on regret: “If I’d killed you when I met you/ I’d be out of jail by now,” or “I only miss you on days that end in ‘y’ ”; on lack of regret: “My wife ran off with my best friend, and I miss him,” or “Don’t cry on my shoulder/ ‘cause you’re rusting my spurs”; on domestic violence: “Get the hammer Mama, there’s a fly on Papa’s head”; on domestic harmony: “Get your biscuits in the oven, and your buns in the bed”; on resentment: “She got the ring and I got the finger,” or its variant “She got the gold mine and I got the shaft”; or the straightforward “You’re the reason our kids are so ugly.” An entire subsection of country music is devoted to men telling women they aren’t sorry: “The next time you throw the frying pan, my face ain’t gonna be there”; “I don’t know whether to kill myself, or go bowling,” and “When the phone don’t ring, you’ll know it’s from me.” But there is also a strong feminist strain, of women telling men where to get off: “Did I shave my legs for this?” or “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” and “I’ll be damned/ If I go home/ With a Wild Turkey like you.” Perhaps the greatest country lyric of all time, reflecting the genre in all its glorious pathos, is this: Since you bought the waterbed We’ve slowly drifted apart." stolen from an otherwise uninteresting article by Ben Macintyre Now you, too, can write country-western lyrics. And get the 'chew your ass out' ringtone and lyrics right here
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If there was one thing that kept me from losing my mind during the 10 months I worked as Operations Director (that's a Program Director who has no control over the programming) for an automated Country radio station in 1978, it was David Allen Coe's "You Never Even Called Me By My Name", which must have preserved other radio peoples' sanity, because the syndicators who provided the station's music on big reels of tape kept that song on either the "A" reel or the "B" reel for most of that year. And it was the long version including the last verse and Coe's spoken lead-in to it: Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song And he told me it was the perfect Country & Western song I wrote him back a letter and I told him it was not the perfect Country & Western song because he hadn't said anything at all about Mama, Or trains, Or trucks, Or prison, Or gettin' drunk. Well he sat down and wrote another verse to the song And he sent it to me, And after reading it, I realized that my friend had written the perfect Country & Western song And I felt obliged to include it on this album The last verse goes like this here: Well I was drunk the day my Mom got out of prison And I went to pick her up in the rain But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned old train
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well cows do have bedroom eyes. the latin term "buops", which denotes 'bedroom eyes' means "cow eyes".
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My family was big on playing charades when I was a kid in the '70s and we kids always would try and beat our parents by coming up with the longest and most outrageous song titles. One of our biggest coups was when my sister submitted the awesome country song, "I've Got Tears in My Ears (From Lying On My Back In My Bed While I Cry Over You)." Another favorite was "Dropkick me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life." I still to this day have never heard either song in real life. Thanks for unearthing those memories for me with this post, BlueHorse! I'm gonna go call my sister now!
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Dolly Parton's Tits (somewhat NSFW yootube) By the '80s Canadian duo Maclean & Maclean, another of whose songs was "Take the 'O' Out of Country"
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Kittenhead, both of those songs were my Dad's favorite things to "sing" during a discussion of country music. Nice to know I'm not the only one!
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Oh, the hermit next door gave a party, And I wasn't invited at all...
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I am disturbed that Cormac McCarthy has a website.
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Wait...Cormac McCarthy? I'm too stuffed up in the sinuses to determine whether that's a joke site or not... I kinda hope it's not. It'd be like discovering Herzog was in a Scorpions tribute band in college. Which would, of course, be way better than the actual Scorpions. ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE at the mouth of the Amazon while you're piloting a steamship against the current in a metaphor for Sisyphusian human struggle...
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Okay, weird, it's a different Cormac McCarthy.