Garage Bands or Banjos? My Flirtation with Country Music

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A scenic view of a wheat field at sunset. There's an old building in the background.

Sunset and dry grass. Photo by Jack Redgate

Whether we’re country haters, country lovers, or something in between, we can all agree on one thing: Artists in the genre love to sing about beer and trucks. Or do they? This week, I took it upon myself to dive into the genre’s content and see if I’ve been wrong. I looked at its lyrics, style, and statistics, and what I found made me second-guess what I thought I knew about the genre. For a moment, it even made me wonder if I could give pop, punk, and rock a break to be a country fan myself.

A red Toyota Tacoma driving down a mountain road at sunset.

Pickup truck on highway. Photo by athena

In 2020, Youtuber and country fan Grady Smith released a video titled “Every country song has these lyrics. Right?” In it, he provides a breakdown of the most common lyrics from Country Billboard's top 30 songs from 2014 to 2019. Surprisingly, “truck” only appeared in 46 of the 471 songs, and “beer” appeared even less. It only appeared in 32 of the 471 songs. Yeah, I was shocked, too. And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering what did show up in most of these songs. What really sits at the heart of country music?

In a twist anyone could see, it turns out country’s key themes are romantic. That’s right. Most country music isn’t about trucks, beer, or tailgates. It’s about men and women. Smith’s analysis ranks the word “girl” as the third most common country lyric, with almost as many mentions of it in one year as “truck” had in the study’s full run. Suddenly, country music feels a lot more accessible. After all, what genre isn’t filled with songs about guys, girls, and their attraction toward each other?

Maybe that common ground can help explain country rap, a genre fusion that I never saw coming. I had a good laugh when I found out about it. But the combination isn’t completely uncalled for. As Country Rap News points out (Yes, that’s a real website,) artists in the genre have been making “Talking Tunes” since Tex Williams released the song “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette,)” in 1947. But it didn’t stop there. The world had a full-on genre crossover on its hands when the Bellamy Brothers released their album titled Country Rap in 1987. This trend has continued into the present day, with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” being an obvious example.

People at a concert. Some of them are wearing cowboy hats.

People at concert. Photo by elise bunting

Unfortunately, things like hick-hop (Yes, people really call it that.) are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to country culture, and the genre is nowhere near as diverse as the crossover would indicate. In a 2021 report by The SongData Project, Dr. Jada E. Watson highlights some troubling statistics in modern country. It turns out that 98 percent of the country music artists from the years 2000 to 2020 were white, and 74.3 percent of them were white men.

Those stats raise enough red flags alone. But alongside coverage, like this article by NBC, of racially charged controversies around artists like Morgan Wallen, it’s impossible not to draw some damning conclusions. It all makes sense in hindsight. The same article on Wallen also highlights how modern country has its roots in the 1920s when record labels were sorting music by race. The survival of those sentiments in the present day is clear when black country artists like Darius Rucker report receiving racially charged hate mail.

Maybe I’ll be a country fan one day, but the genre has some serious work to do before I’m ready to take it seriously. I used to dislike the genre for the wrong reasons, and now I dislike it for the right ones.

I’m Owen, and you can think of me as the group’s roadie, just along for the ride. I’m the type of guy who hops in his car, turns the discovery playlist on and lets the algorithm choose his music. This has led to my commutes having backtracks that range from metal to pop and everything in between. Maybe I’ll be more decisive about my listening habits one day, but for now, I’m just going to ride the soundwave.

Fighting for Change: How Punk Rock Pushed for More

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people standing on the street during protests at night. (Photo by Maurício Mascaro)

Drugs. Sex. Violence. These might be the first things that come to mind when you hear the words “Punk Rock,” but what if I told you there’s a compassionate side to this abrasive genre of music? Bands like The Sex Pistols may be known for their controversial relationships with recreational drugs, but what about the ones fed up with how a culture centred around freedom enslaved itself with substance abuse? It’s time to buckle up and learn about the straight edge movement, a group of rebels amongst rebels who decided that anarchy wasn’t enough.

The origins of the straight edge movement can be traced back to Ian Mackay, vocalist of the punk band Minor Threat. In 1981, Mackay and his band released a song titled “Straight Edge,” which expressed Mackay’s frustration with the drug abuse that was running wild in the punk community at the time.

Group of people at an event. (Photo by anna-m.w.)

Mackay’s anti-drug sentiment caught on with certain members of the punk community, and before long, the words “straight edge” were more than a song title. As members of a budding subculture, people who adopted straight edge values would show up to punk shows with large black “Xs” on their hands. Initially, this symbol had meant that someone at a punk show was underage and bartenders shouldn’t serve them alcohol, but it quickly transformed into an emblem for this fringe group of punks.

Imagine how surprised straight edgers must have been to learn that Mackay didn’t want anything to do with them. He even explicitly states in the track “Out of Step” that what he said in “Straight Edge” wasn’t meant to start a movement; it was just him talking about how much he didn’t like drinking, drugs and casual sex. To this day, Mackay and Minor Threat have never identified as straight edge at any point in their careers. Regardless, their song gave rise to a new type of punk, and those punks carried on without them.

By the end of the 1980s, some straight edge punks were condemning more than just drugs and alcohol. In 1988, the band Youth of Today released a song titled “No More.” The song advocates for a vegetarian lifestyle, claiming that society is selfish and hardened and we need to stop eating animals to be moral.

Coupling vegetarianism with punk might sound like a recipe for disaster when you consider the violent nature of punk rock, but Youth of Today wanted to be more than what people expected of them. They were a part of what’s known as the “positive mental attitude” or “P.M.A.” movement. Started by the reggae punk group Bad Brains in 1979, P.M.A. infiltrated punk's typically nihilistic and violent culture to spread a message more positive than the punk norm. Armed with this outlook, Youth of Today spent their free time pooling funds to help the homeless and working towards making the world a better place.

With their positive outlook and compassionate ideals, straight edge punk bands like Youth of Today could have done a lot of good for people in need and the animal rights movement. But there was just one small problem—their fans.

a Blazing car wreck. (Photo by Flavio)

Hardcore punk has always attracted young people willing to go to extremes, and straight edge is no exception. Over the years, the movement has become known for the violence carried out by some of its advocates just as much or even more than the compassionate acts of others. In their 2008 documentary Inside Straight Edge, National Geographic explores the subculture in three American cities: Boston, Salt Lake City, and Reno. They found that acts of violence carried out by the straight edge community were so common that local law enforcement in Boston and Salt Lake City had even classified the community as a gang.

So, is there more to punk rock than drugs, sex, and violence? Yes. But despite their good intentions, straight edge bands like Youth of Today were fighting an uphill battle to transform punk rock, and what good is fighting when violence is the problem?

I’m Owen, and you can think of me as the group’s roadie, just along for the ride. I’m the type of guy who hops in his car, turns the discovery playlist on and lets the algorithm choose his music. This has led to my commutes having backtracks that range from metal to pop and everything in between. Maybe I’ll be more decisive about my listening habits one day, but for now, I’m just going to ride the soundwave.