Country Rap?

"Save a horse, ride a cowboy" is one of the most annoying country songs ever recorded. Not only are the lyrics insipid and the melody, if you can call it that, weak, but it advocates a completely self-centered, hedonist lifestyle. One person (who liked it) said it was country's venture into rap music, which is an insult to country and rap at the same time. I don't like rap (chiefly for the content), but one thing I am certain of is that this is not country's first rap-like song. In fact, on reflection, country has a long history of "rapping" its lyrics, although it is obviously not the primary mode of expression. Johnny Cash, for example, spoke the verses to "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," singing only the chorus. I would describe it as a failed attempt -- certainly one of his worst songs, in a musical sense. He used the same speaking voice in "One Piece at a Time," which is at least a far more interesting song.

Country rap (if I may describe it like that) hit the big time with "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniel's Band. It was not only a #1 country hit, but reached #3 overall. Even though I generally don't like songs that are spoken, I love this song; it was popular when I was growing up, so maybe I wouldn't care for it so much if I heard it for the first time now. I also like Jerry Reid's "She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft," which I can't attribute to youthful exuberance, since I didn't even hear it until about a year ago. Obviously the chief interest in this song is the humour; musically, it is more like Johnny Cash's rap songs, and is not nearly as interesting as "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

Then there is Shania Twain's "Honey, I'm Home," which is not just a spoken song, but more like a hip-hop song in feel: supporting music, especially in between verses, and a heavy emphsis on the rhythm of the spoken words. She also makes a lot of use of spoken words in her other songs, such as "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" and "That Don't Impress Me Much" -- and in a way that works, unlike Taylor Swift, who seems to lapse frequently into speaking in her songs but only in a way that detracts from them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

What Are Pronouns For?

 Here's what I don't get about people defining their own pronouns (and I use "their" advisedly):  If I am talking to you, your pronoun is "you."  No one disputes that.  If I am talking about you to another person, the pronoun I use to reference you is none of your business.  I am in a conversation with someone else; you are not a party to it, and you are not entitled to impose rules on it.  Ideally, you will never know what we say -- but if you do find out, it doesn't matter because the pronouns I used were for my convenience, not for your feelings.  Heck, I may not even have met you, may not have any idea what you identify as or even what sex you really are (as sometimes happens when people have names like "Leslie" or "Ashley" that get used for both sexes, or foreign names that I am unfamiliar with).  So mind your business and there will be nothing to get offended about.
Read more