I've had that one line from that stupid Kenny Chesney song stuck
in my head for weeks now, and it's driving me completely insane. I
only heard it because it's featured in a tv commercial right now - it's
not like I actively sought it out - so relax.
It's from a song called "The Good Stuff", and it encompasses everything I hate about modern country music.
First of all, I don't particularly care for things that
manufactured with the specific intent of "pulling at my
heart-strings". I don't like being manipulated into identifying with
someone's fake tear-jerking plight for the sake of record sales, or
movie sales, or whatever. This is why I don't watch Hallmark Hall of
Fame movies, read Chicken Soup for The Soul books, or listen to modern
country music to begin with. Anything that has a tag line that says,
"It'll make you cry!" is like kryptonite to me. I'm quite
capable of having my own emotions without someone planting some
pathetic plastic seed of sadness.
And, oh. Kenny Chesney.
Now let's put aside, for a moment, that any man who wears puka
shell necklaces and cowboy hats - and has an obvious spray-tan - should
be permanently banned from ever being seen in public. Let's not even
discuss it.
Let's not talk about how a grown man should never shop for jewelry at Claire's Boutique.
Let's not discuss how he's the goddamn motherfucking Jimmy Buffett of the Gulf of Mexico.
Let's not talk about how he probably says stuff like, "I only take
off my boots for two things: makin' love in Houston and skim-boardin'
in Galveston."
Let's not address how it's probably his fault that everybody has
those "Salt Life" stickers on the backs of their trucks now, thereby
replacing the TruckNutz as most irritating truck accessory. I'm just
not in the mood to address it.
Nor am I in the mood to talk about how he does that thing where he
purses his lips and squints his eyes half shut for pictures like he's
some kind of slightly-more-bald Bret Michaels as if he's saying, "I'm
serious, y'all. Pass me a Corona Light. Seriously, y'all. Those
limes better be organic."
And don't even get me started about all the respect he gets for
writing his own songs. I realize that's a rarity in modern country
music, but that's not a goddamn victory by any means. Not when you're
writing lyrics like "He grabbed a carton of milk and poured a glass and
I smiled and said I'll have some of that." I think I wrote lyrics like
that once, of course I was ten years old at the time and had recently
been hit in the face with a socket wrench that I was attempting to use
as a New Year's noisemaker, so I at least had an excuse.
But the song is so "sad"! It's so "touching"! The wife got
cancer! The husband became an alcoholic! You know what's even more
sad? Actual people getting cancer. Actual people becoming
alcoholics.
How about this? If you want to co-opt people's very serious
emotions about very serious issues, and you make some shit up to wring
tears out of people so they'll buy your album, the least you could do
is donate every dime of the proceeds to the actual people who are
suffering with the illnesses you're fucking exploiting.
There's enough shit in the world to cry about, why would you even
want or need to make stuff up? But the imaginary wife had imaginary
cancer and the imaginary husband became an imaginary alcoholic in that
song! I know. And it's a fucking imaginary tragedy.
And, come on, a puka shell necklace? I wish that fucker were imaginary.
Maggie
Come see The Freakin' Hott, Zombies Organize, Timb, Stonefox, and
Bonnie Riot for the "Nightmare on J Street" party at Propaganda on
Halloween! $5 cover, 21 and up, get there early, and, yes, we will be
in costume. Govern your boner accordingly.