Category: Culture

Down yonder, a reader writes:

I would like to see someone write a long article on the strange combination of traditional values like patriotism, family and a faith that plays right alongside praising infidelity, praising being drunk and Tim McGraw’s ambivalent song about abortion. There seems to be a strange disconnect among Country singers and their fans who can sing along with Restless Heart’s "Why does it have to be wrong or right?" one minute and then switch to "Believe" by Brooks and Dunn the next.

It’s like reading Cosmo and Inside the Vatican and not seeing any conflict.

Weird.

I think I can shed some light on the paradox. The reason for it is very simple: Country music is a form of folk music.

Folk music, by definition, reflects the interests of a particular people or "folk." Since there are saints and sinners in every group, folks music invariably includes songs that appeal to both. By its nature, folk music is broadly reflective of whatever the particular folk is interested in, which includes things like their religious lives, their families, their romances, their jobs, their frustrations, and their entertainments. The particular mix of these topics will vary from culture to culture and from time to time even within a particular musical tradition, but the same topics show up over and over again, just in different ratios.

Folk music can be distinguished from more selective musical traditions which are more polarized topically. Religious music–particularly those song that are sung in church–for example, is very, very narrow topically. Perhaps it’s the most narrow genre of music that shows up in each culture since it is devoted to the holy, which by definition is set apart from the ordinary.

Children’s music is also quite narrow in topics because its target audience is only just learning about life and the music created for children is focused on what children are interested in (e.g., animals, the jobs of the adults they see around them) and what is considered appropriate for them at their age.

Classic rock and roll, which received its foundational imprint as music for mid 20th century adolescents and young adults, is also narrower in topic than country music since its target audience hasn’t really come to terms with life as adults. It’s also marked by the obsessive interest of young males with a few particular topics (e.g.,  dating, sex, cars, rebellion against authority). It also shows notable traces of the particular era in which it was formed (e.g., songs about drug abuse rather than alcohol abuse).

Country music received its foundational imprint as music for traditional American adult society, which has historically been rural and religious. This means that you get some songs that are heavily religiously themed but also songs about sin. Since people struggle with their sins, you get some songs that reflect the struggle ("Why Does It Have To Be Right Or Wrong?"). Since people also give themselves over to their sins, you also have songs that glorify sinning ("Get Drunk And Be Somebody"). Since people get hurt by others’ sins, there are songs about that, too ("Your Cheatin’ Heart"). And there are songs that morally censure sinning ("Wreck on the Highway"). And songs from the perspective of those hurting under their own sins ("Honky Tonk Blues"). And songs that worry about whether people will escape from their sins ("Will The Circle Be Unbroken?").

You even get some songs that are like something from a Flannery O’Connor story (e.g., the Dixie Chicks’ "Goodbye, Earl" or Rock County’s "Turn It On! Turn It On! Turn It On!").

It’s a big, complex mix because folk music reflects the lives and struggles of the folk it represents. It includes both the good and the bad, leading to the paradox of amazingly powerful spiritual songs right next to ones glorifying sin.

That’s not to say that people to whom the folk music is addressed like all of the songs in the tradition. Religious country music fans frown on the glorify sin songs. Irreligious country music fans may roll their eyes at the  religious songs. But the mix is there because the music represents a folk and the folk itself is mixed. Some fans appreciate both kinds of songs because both reflect their lives and aspirations.

The paradox seems particularly striking if one is used to music that is topically more narrow (e.g., used to only religious music–which has the holy stuff but leaves out the sin-oriented songs–or used to rock and roll–which is more oriented toward the sinful stuff and tends to leave out the holy most of the time).

But the paradox of modern country music is normal in folk music. If you go back and listen to 19th century American folk music, the exact same themes are there: You’ve got explicitly religious songs and ones that hit the standard life and sin themes. "Ol’ Rosin the Beau" glorifies a reprobate who dies and goes to hell and drinks whiskey with the devil. "Soldier’s Joy" has alcohol/drug abuse in it ("It’s 25 cents for the morphine/It’s 15 cents for the beer/It’s 25 cents for the morphine/Gonna drink me away from here"). The original, pre-War version of "Dixie" has adultery in it ("Old Missus married Will the weaver/William was a gay deceiver . . . Old Missus played the foolish part/She died for a man who broke her heart"). "Sweet Betsy From Pike" has implied extramarital sex and possible illegitimate preganancy in it. "Buffalo Gals" and "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" are about being attracted to the opposite sex. "Cindy" is about the opposite sex being attracted to you. "Lorena" is about lost love and missed opportunities. The "Boatman’s Dance" is about glorifying a particular job/lifestyle.

And the same is true of folk music in other times and cultures. Back in the Middle Ages they had all kinds of religiously themed songs, but they also had drinking songs they’d sing in the taverns. And songs about romance and sex and loneliness and hardship and everything else that is part of the human condition.

Because that’s the paradox of true folk music: It reflects the paradox of the fallen human condition.

As to the paradox of why particular singers will sing both religious songs and those that glorify sin, the answer to that is simple also: They’re doing what singers have always done . . . trying to make money.

Incidentally,

MUSINGS FROM A CATHOLIC BOOKSTORE ALSO HAS A DISCUSSION OF THIS GOING.

Since I was talking about music earlier today, I may as well touch on this story as well.

To the left is the cover of the Dixie Chicks’ new album, Taking the Long Way, which is their first new album since they shot off their mouths in a spectacularly rude way at a specutacularly bad time that was sure to alienate their country music audience.

GET THAT STORY IF YOU DON’T KNOW IT.

They could have recovered from that, but instead they issued a string of smouldering non-apologies and eventually appeared–bizarrely!–on the cover of Entertainment Weekly stark nekkid with inflammatory words and phrases painted on their bodies.

That ain’t really the country thing to do, and their fans turned their backs on them.

Now, personally, I don’t care if they hold the opinions of President Bush that they expressed in England. I’m not happy with President Bush, myself. But to say what they did (that they’re ashamed that the president is from Texas) when they did (in wartime) where they did (on foreign soil) to whom they did (Euro liberals) was sure to hack off the people who bought their records, and following it up with a bunch of non-apologies and bizarro stunts LIKE THIS (skin warning!) was utterly contemptuous of their core audience.

In other words, they were alienating their base.

So, three years later out comes their first new album and their label starts pitching it to country music stations and with news stories being written with headlines like "Dixie Chicks Return To Country Radio."

So have three years changed things? Is all forgiven? Will their country fans start listening to them again?

A precondition for forgiveness is repentance, and with defiant, in-your-face songs on the album like "Not Ready To Make Nice"–a contemptuous stab at those who were offended by their actions three years ago–it’s clear that the Chicks have some repenting to do if they want to be forgiven by their country fans.

AND SO THE ALBUM IS GOING NOWHERE, MANY STATIONS AREN’T PLAYING ITS SONGS, AND THOSE THAT ARE ARE GETTING COMPLAINTS.

Good.

I used to listen to their songs–I particularly liked "Goodbye Earl"–but the Chicks showed themselves to be a bunch of spoiled girls who have never grown up. I have no interest in listening to their songs because I will have no ability to enjoy them until they can adopt an attitude other than contempt for those who gave them their success by buying their albums and supporting them and their careers.

A basic rule of getting along in life for public figures is "Don’t show contempt for your base."

That’s a principle Mr. Bush ought to learn if he’d like his reputation to fare well in the long term, too.

See the guy in this picture?

That’s Moondoggie from the Gidget movies, and it’s Gidget he’s standing next to.

Moondoggie was played by a teen idol of the day known as Jimmy Darren (who was popular enough that he later appeared in animated form on The Flintsones as Jimmy Darrenrock.)

As part of his teen heartthrob career, Jimmy recorded a number of albums.

But he moved out of this phase of his career (as teen idols tend to do). He tried to move on to more "serious" roles, like this one . . .

Here he is as Dr. Tony Newman, one of two time-travelling scientists on the Irwin Allen thriller TV show, The Time Tunnel.

I recently blogged about the release of the DVDs of that series, which I was a fan of as a boy.

This was the role in which I first became aware of Jimmy Darren, though I had no clue who he was in real life any more than I did any actors I saw on TV at the time.

During this period of is career he also went for "serious-er" roles than that of a time-travelling scientist, such as Pvt. Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarrone.

I like The Guns of Navarrone, but I was oblivious to Darren’s role in it, too. It wouldn’t be until he started performing another role that I really became aware of who he was.

That role–which is the one for which I’ll always best remember him–is this one:

Here he’s appearing as the holographic 1962 lounge singer Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

This was a great role for him! It drew on his musical and sci-fi background and he did an absolutely outstanding job as a suave, wise, strong, and (once in a while) vulnerable lounge singer who could really sing.

There was also some irony to the role since in the imaginary 1962 world that Vic inhabited, he sang at a Vegas nightclub and hung with members of the Rat Pack like Frank and Dino and Sammy–and in real life the actor Jimmy Darren was a close friend of Frank Sinatra.

The Vic Fontaine role came along at an important point for Darren and allowed him to re-enter the kind of musical world that he had worked in at the beginning of career. His role on DS9 proved so popular that not only did he become a virtual regular on the show (in more than one sense of the term), it also re-launched his career as a singer.

After the show he started recording albums again, and a number of his older ones have been re-released.

In fact, there’s ten of ’em on iTunes for download right now (search on the term "James Darren").

I haven’t heard all ten, but if you enjoyed his singing on DS9–or if you just like really well-sung American standards in the Frank Sinatra/Mel Torme tradition–then I’d like to recommend one album in particular: This One’s From The Heart.

This is the first album he did after DS9, and as a thank you to the fans of the show who would form a key part of its purchasers, it includes virtually all the songs he sang as Vic Fontaine–only this time without them being interrupted for story or covered over by dialogue or cut short for time.

Here’s the playlist of standards it includes:

"The Best Is Yet To Come," "Come Fly With Me," "That Old Black Magic," "All the Way," "It’s Only A Paper Moon," "I’ve Got the World on a String," "You’d Better Love Me," "Sophisticated Lady," "Just In Time," "I’ve Got You Under My Skin," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Here’s to the Losers," "You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You," "Dancing in the Dark," "Night and Day," "I’ll Be Seeing You," and "Satin Doll."

That’s quite a lineup! And Darren’s rendition of these songs is excellent.

I have a bunch of the same songs done by Frank Sinatra, but despite Sinatra’s undeniable mastery of this form of singing, I find that I enjoy Darren’s versions better. Darren’s voice has a more velvety quality, like Mel Torme’s, compared to Sinatra, and this makes it warmer. This kind of Rat Pack singing requires the singer to project a kind of strengh through his voice, but there are different kinds of strengths, and if you listen to Sinatra’s voice he at times projects a cruel streak.

Darren, by contrast, projects a friendliness and warmth, even when the song would lend itself to a cruel treatment. For example, a personal favorite are the songs "You’d Better Love Me" and "Here’s to the Losers," both of which have to be handled just right or the singer comes off sounding aloof and arrogant. That’s how Sinatra might do them. But in Darren’s hands, "You’d Better Love Me" sounds friendly and playful and "Here’s to the Losers" sounds compassionate and optimistic.

Not every song on the album is a winner to my mind. I don’t really like "Sophisticated Lady," for example. (It’s a slow song, and I have a constitutional aversion to slow songs.)

Growing up when I did, I didn’t discover this type of music until I was an adult. Back in high school, singers like Frank Sinatra were considered square, but when I grew up enough to appreciate types of music that weren’t popular with my high school buddies, I came to appreciate this genre.

Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to refer to because there isn’t a standard name for it. Some are calling it "classic pop" (i.e., the type of music that was popular before rock & roll). Others are calling it "pop standards." Or "lounge music." Whatever you want to call it, there’s just something comforting and classy about this type of music.

Overall, Darren’s This One’s From The Heart is an outstanding introduction to and example of the genre, and I’d heartily recommend it if you were a DS9 fan, if you’re a lover of this style of music, or even if you’ve never really gotten into this style of singing and would like to see what the fuss was about.

Enjoy!