So damn literal

It's not the fact that if listened to long enough it all sounds the same, or that the subject matter is divided into songs about love and songs about stuff that isn't love, but the fact that the lyrics have all the subtlety of a traffic jam.

I'm talking about country music.

It's all just so damn literal! It can never allude to anything or be indirect. Honestly, it's like music for people that need it spelled out for them. You could take a really generic short story, toss in a steel guitar and some drunk with a southern twang in their voice and BAM: You've got the makings of a classic country album!

There has been one instance where I had come to accept and :shudder: enjoy country music.

I met Amanda online and she had an overnight paper route delivering The Wall Street Journal. She was really bored doing it by herself and I was lonely and unemployed so I started to help her with it. Now this wasn't some kiddy route. This route took about three to four hours every night by car. The only entertainment available was a rickety old boombox that only picked up one station.

Give yourself a cookie if you guessed what kind of station it picked up.

The first couple weeks were a bit nerve wracking. Having to listen to one of the few genres of music I consider tonal abomination for hours on end was bearable only because of how horribly lonely I was. Eventually though, I started to hear a few songs that I considered to be of a higher quality. Amanda knew her country music so I would just ask her what song was playing. About a month into it I had a very selective library of tolerable (enjoyable even) country songs I would consider listening to on purpose.

I think I went on that paper route with her for a couple months. Once I stopped going though, it didn't take long for me to fall back into my usual distaste of the genre. Well, for the most part. If I do my best to not pay attention to how insipid the lyrics are, I can find something to like about most country music.

By the way, I can totally say it all sounds the same. As punk rock is my favorite genre of music (as well as it's variants and similar genres (alternative, post-grunge)) and everybody knows that it all sounds the same no matter how long you listen to it. So I know what I'm talking about I guess :)

ps. Following is the joke I got the title from: I'd like to see a forklift lift a crate of forks. It'd be so damn literal. "Hey, you're using that machine to its exact purpose!"