The "Battle of the Bands" actually originated in my family's living room sometime in the late sixties.
My parents were raised on a steady diet of Country Music, and generally seemed to think that anything written after 1960, or by anyone not wearing a cowboy hat, was punishment for the eardrums. Their children had different ideas, from the oldest daughters who were hooked the first time they watched The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to the youngest son who grooved on hair metal and arena rock. We all loved to listen to music, but much to their chagrin our tastes didn't reflect theirs.
"Turn that racket down!" was my parents' usual response to whatever their kids played on the family stereo. Much eye-rolling, snickering and scattering to bedrooms ensued when our parents hiked up their tunes.
They remained ever hopeful that we'd acquire a taste for their music and exposed us to it frequently. This felt like a unique form of torture, akin to my mother's insistence that someday we'd thank her for using onions so liberally. I remember them forcing us to sit and watch Lawrence Welk ("an'a one, an'a two..."), Hee Haw and the Tommy Hunter Show. They must've thought they'd turned a corner when my second oldest sister bought a John Denver album in 1975, but the next week she bought an album by Alice Cooper and they sunk back into despair.
"See - That's good music!" my father would state clearly and emphatically, when Tommy sang about wanting to ramble. (I suspect he thought we were all slightly brain-addled from all the rock music we'd listened to.) "It's not like that garbage you guys blare."
I was always slightly offended that my "garbage" was lumped in alongside everyone else's. I wasn't the one who listened to Bob Dylan or Rush, for goodness sake! Voices that could scrape paint just didn't cut it for me, no matter how poetic the lyrics. In truth, we siblings all had different musical tastes too, and only stood as a united front in our mutual disdain for the "Country and Western" music our parents adored. I once had an eerily deja vu moment when my oldest sister told me to turn down my Moody Blues album, which she referred to as "that crap", while she was on the phone. Mind you, she was talking to her boyfriend, so her judgment may have been temporarily impaired.
I have to admit that I enjoyed the experience of being what I'll call an occasional country music "tourist" - I got a kick out of attending family functions where bands played songs that I'd never heard of, let alone actually heard, anywhere else. Thus I have fond memories of tunes like "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey?" and "I'm Proud to Be An Okie From Muskogee". Not everyone from my generation could make that claim. But obviously not everyone from my generation grew up hearing their off-tune father belt out "The Wabash Cannonball" on a regular basis.
A lot of the country music popular in the 70's tickled my funny bone - there was so much melodrama in those songs. Inevitably somebody had "done somebody wrong", but morals abounded and lessons were learned. Heck, Tammy Wynette endlessly whined about how important it was to "Stand By Your Man" until her D-I-V-O-R-C-E become final. Loretta warned all those wicked women off her Doo in tunes like "Woman of the World" (leave my world alone!) and "You Ain't Woman Enough" (to take my man!) It was the kind of music I loved to hate. (Or maybe hated to love - it's hard to distinguish between the two. If you've never listened to square dance music played on the wrong speed, you're really missing something.) For a while I had a morbid fascination with Tom T. Hall's "I Like Beer", which I first heard when I was going through some break-up angst. I suspect I was happy enough to drown my sorrows vicariously through good ole Tom. I still catch myself singing it from time to time, in spite of the fact that I remain a complete abstainer. (Well, it is a catchy little number.)
As reluctant as I am to admit it, I've always kind of admired the way country artists put it all out there - from that first euphoric glimpse of love, to the betrayal, then finally the movin' on. I'm sure Taylor Swift got her inspiration for tattle tale songs about past relationships from these people, but their songs were a lot more fun. I get a kick out the antics they sing about - catching the cheater in the act, getting even, maybe even offing the truly offensive jerk like in the Dixie Chicks "Good-bye Earl", which proves that as silly as most of these songs are, this is a genre that isn't afraid to be just a wee bit dark at times.
Now I can unabashedly enjoy almost all kinds of music. Once my husband and I listened to a whole disc that our older son left laying around, by some band called Swordsmen of Bagels, or something like that. I wanted to be a cool parent and tell him that I totally enjoyed it, but I really didn't. So I can't say I've reached the summit of musical tolerance, but I'm trying. (For a while - years back - I even used to exercise in the mornings to CMT, but not until after the rest of the family had departed for work and school. I didn't want my menfolk to worry.) I routinely listen to music that is on the verge of "country" - or at least "New Country", and at this point I don't care who knows it. Sometimes I even feel reminiscent and get a hankering to hear the stuff my parents loved. (I listened to Hank Snow's "Wreck of the Old '97" just before I sat down to wrote this post. My father would have approved.)
Even as a youth I'd listen to those good 'ole "hurtin' songs" and think how much fun it would be to write one. (Don't we all have a "s/he done me wrong" story to tell?) However, it took me a whole lot of years to act on the impulse.
It was after hearing Toby Keith's "How Do You Like Me Now?", a song that resonated with the cranky, crabby "here's to spittin' in yore eye" attitude that often prevails in me, that I sat down and finally attempted my own version of a dose of country heartbreak. Obviously "The Dawg Gone Blues" is not autobiographical. (Regardless of what those Facebook quizzes tell me, I am a woman.) But I could clearly envision the big ole lunk-head who'd have exactly this sort of story to tell. (I think maybe Toby could do it justice.)
The morals in this song are three-fold:
1) Make sure the woman of your dreams likes your dog
2) Buy a new mattress before you burn the old one
3) Get a pre-nup before you visit the judge and move her into your trailer!
So here goes - my first (and best) of two attempts to write about the cheatin' heart-breakers who inspire so much country music. (No dogs will be injured in the making of the music video : )
The Dawg Gone Blues
I woke up one morning
alone in our big bed -
don't know why but suddenly
I felt a sense of dread.
I showered and ate breakfast
then whistled for old Fred -
and found out to my horror
my faithful friend was dead.
Chorus:
Why'd you hafta break my heart
and leave me on my own?
Picture how upset I got
that you had up and flown.
You was quite a looker -
wish you had a kinder clone!
I wish that when you left me,
you'd left my dawg alone!
You emptied out my wallet
and bankrupted my heart,
then you went and shot my dawg
with a poisoned dart.
And killin' this man's best friend -
that was the cruelest part.
Now I'm mighty glad yore gone
'cause yore a mean ole tart.
Chorus
The first day I was busy -
yore letters I did shred,
and then I put myself to work
and dug a hole for Fred.
I finished burning up yore stuff,
but was still seeing red -
and I knew what I had to do
was fumigate the bed.
Chorus
The mattress was a sizzlin'
when I let out a groan -
Now I'd be sleepin' bedless,
as well as all alone.
You dynamited this ole heart -
replaced it with a stone,
because you was the Queen bee
and I was just a drone.
Chorus
Looking back I see it now,
I wasn't very smart.
You used me and abused me
and trashed my trustin' heart.
I think I've wisened up some
since we've been apart -
ain't never signed a pre-nup yet
but I'm about to start!
Chorus
By Sharon Flood Kasenberg, February 2006
If anyone happens to run into Toby, tell him I have a song that has his name all over it, and he can record it and pay me big royalties -
- As long as my name is all under it!
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