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The Forum > Article Comments > The politics of country music > Comments

The politics of country music : Comments

By Rae Wear, published 14/12/2006

Country music reflects and sustains a series of political meanings that have long been part of the history of the nation.

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Yes Country and also Western are the heart and soul of Australia. It is only an aberration that they are completely deritive of American music down to dress, manner, words, values and (of course) accents.

I love yodelling marr-self, see http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-7012424237896036764&q=yodelling

The only truely Australian performer I know is Slim Dusty:

Oh it's-a lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the campfire at night we'll hear the wild dingoes call
But there's-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer....

...And old Billy the blacksmith, the first time in his life
Why he's gone home cold sober to his darling wife
He walks in the kitchen, she says you're early Bill dear
But then he breaks down and tells her the pub's got no beer...

Its sad very sad.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 14 December 2006 12:34:46 PM
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Hmmm, "We have both kinds of music. Country AND Western."

Pete, That would be Folk Music! Back in the 80's wasn't there Bush Music? I thought that was more Australian than the imported American kink.
Posted by Narcissist, Thursday, 14 December 2006 12:54:28 PM
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Titles of some of my favourite country music songs:

• You're The Ring Around My Bathtub, You're The Hangnail Of My Life
• You Done The Wrong Woman Wrong
• You Ain't Much Fun Since I Quit Drinkin'
• Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?
• Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking In
• They May Put Me In Prison, But They Can't Stop My Face From Breakin' Out
• She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger
• She Feels Like A New Man Tonight.
• Saddle Up the Stove Ma, I'm Riding the Range Tonight
• Redneck Martians Stole My Baby
• My Phone Ain't been Ringing, so I Guess it Wasn't You
• Last Night I Went to Bed with a "10" and Woke this Morning with a "2"
• I Would Kiss You Through the Screendoor but It'd Strain Our Love
• I've Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart.
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 14 December 2006 2:04:16 PM
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Rainer

Yip. Thayz is the most inneresting, but then tharz:

Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goalposts Of Life

Goes like:

Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
End over end neither left nor to right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

Make me, oh make me, Lord more than I am
Make me a piece in your master game plan
Free from the earthly tempestion below
I’ve got the will, Lord if you’ve got the toe...

For listening pleasure: http://bertc.com/18Track18ah.mp3

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 14 December 2006 2:28:37 PM
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Country music is mainly a male genre and it affords men the same relief that a good cry affords women. It is a good opportunity to whinge and moan and even look a bit less than blokeish for a time without being noticed to do so. Along with booze, it offers the illusion of escape from reality, helped by the simple repetitive lyrics. Although as some songs attest, the real world comes back eventually to bite one of the ‘ass’;

Even if one is a 'rolling stone who gathers no boss' one can feel a bit deprived when night comes. Singin' about it is easier than chatting up a sheila especially if you are a bit short on the social graces (and probably don't want her as a 'keeper' anyhow).

Then there is that eternal dependence on nature and weather. Oh bother!

It is telling that women and romance (maybe that is too strong a word) are seen as being as complex as the weather(!) as just as variable as the seasons.

However some country is optimistic, although most likely in a fatalistic way.

If we put a huge fibreglass ear in each country town with a built in continuous tape that said "There, there, it's not your fault, things will get better in time", there would be very little need for country music.

That leads me to my assessment that any political themes in country music are most likely there only as props for a jolly good old whinge and moan about life in general and the singer song writers as well as the consumers do not really mean much by it.

What I am saying is that country and western music is about emotional release, especially for lonely men. But women can 'enjoy' it too. I wouldn't worry about it becoming a political force, unlike protest music. After all it is about complaint, not protest and things that cannot be changed and therein lies a very big difference.

It is not my cup of tea either.
Posted by Cornflower, Thursday, 14 December 2006 2:49:48 PM
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Interesting piece

One of the striking things about hansonism was how she was perceived to be a non-politician or even anti-poltician at the same time as she was pushing a blatently populish political agenda.

How true, too, that this form of populism defies "left-right" labelling. The creepy bush-fascist Macca that pollutes ABC airwaves on Sunday mornings probably thinks of himself as left-wing.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 14 December 2006 3:07:03 PM
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Surprisng that our popular country music has not become more political, if the diviseness in WA between city and country has anything to do with it, as well as the lack of caring professionals, like doctors and teachers and such.

We are getting a few lyrics about it, but not to the full extent. Take the plight of our WA dairy farmers who have never been so unfairly treated with the buyers sucking up to the consumers, but still refusing to give the Milkies much more than enough to live on.

Reckon the days when us kids used to practice singing while pulling the teats, or chasing sheep and cattle on horseback, even crooning classics like Oh Sweet Mystery of Life, which we were not allowed to sing with grown-ups as they read the written rolls as they clustered round the pianola. Of course, us with legs long enough could peddle the bellows, but a smack across the ear was expected just for even a murmer out of the mouth

Cows encouraged sweet crooning music, as when they gave us nips a loving lick, or a saddlehorse might contentedly canter along to the sound of a singing kid cowboy, or maybe the other way round.

But nowadays nobody much in the bush gets a look in. Especially in mining or money pit WA, where more a loud-mouthed sort of music is sung not to the mooey murmer of a contented cow, or the clippety hooves of a happy horse, but more out loud to the swish of tyres or the clank of tracks.

In the bush it has us all wondering whether the good old days will ever come back again?

But the biggest loss to a bush thinker, is the loss of togetherness in the country towns, the only togetherness possibly that of sport, but with too much of the emulated commercialised TV slickness of the city, lacking the old bush insight or commonsense, which was probably why the lecturer novelist Geoffrey Searle even back in the 1980's wrote that popular Aussie book called From Deserts the Prophets Come.
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 14 December 2006 4:41:15 PM
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Bushbred

your post is typical of the populist ideology the article talks of - nostalgic for a past that never was, steeped in resentment of the city and a sense of victimhood.

The dairy farmers in WA were paid millions for structural adjustment. If WA consumers are now getting a better deal thanks to deregulation, good luck to them.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 14 December 2006 6:59:33 PM
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THats why its called Qld Opera
Posted by alanpoi, Thursday, 14 December 2006 10:22:59 PM
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The article is sentimentalist at its extreme and certainly not applicable to this part of rural Australia. Certainly there would be C&W ghettos and some eastern towns consciously seek to turn themselves into C&W ghettos to attract tourists from the cities with their ironed akubras and shiney undented 4WD's. The article smacks of city slickers simplifying bush folk to backward and simple stereotypes to feel as if the 'bush' is some sort of Disneyland to take 'unsophisticated' refuge.
Posted by West, Monday, 18 December 2006 11:34:38 AM
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Where have you been plantagenet? There are plenty of Australian artist with a strong Australian flavour. You only have to look around to see those like John Williamson, Melinda Schneider, Beccy Cole and Sara Storer and that's just starters.

Country music hits reality a fair bit and due to it's simplistic nature of good old fashioned story telling, it's perfect for the family.
Posted by Spider, Monday, 18 December 2006 1:56:51 PM
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Cornflower, you need to take a better look at the Country music scene and see that there is a large female element and going successfully. To say that it's a male area is very much incorrect.

I was watching the review of the most recent competition to find a new country artist. The final heats were dominated by women. The winning male was very good and had to be to beat his feminine competition that were an excellent showing of what Australia is going to see in the future - very talented female country singers who were better than the men by far.

Of the listener's, open your eyes and see just how big the following of female fans really is.
Posted by Spider, Monday, 18 December 2006 2:03:14 PM
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Hi,

Avoid the politics - enjoy the music. We've just released a revamped website which we think is the best Online Country Music Store in Australia - if not the world. If you have any suggestions to make it better please let us know.

Visit the Country Music Store at http://www.gumtreemusic.com.au

Thanks,

Jo.
Posted by Bob222, Sunday, 4 February 2007 1:40:15 PM
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