You love country music. Who wouldn't? Sure, it may be simple and repetitive, but some people say there's brilliance in simplicity. Well, maybe not some people, but I just did. Heartbreak, Jesus, a cold one, and a suspiciously lavish, jacked-up truck that isn't reflective of the town's median income. Rinse. Repeat. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
No, but do fix it, though. And with your bare hands; this is country music for Christ's sake.
Or Christ for country music's sake.
Once the twang of that third and final chord hits your ears, it wraps around your heart like fishing line and pulls you away from that pretentious uptown apartment in the city that everyone outside of farming communities are presumed to have, and back down to Earth so that you can see that the key to life truly is simplicity. And an expensive tool set. And a barn full of pesticides and other biological agents engendered by the miracle of modern chemistry. And an advanced knowledge of contemporary agricultural science.
Okay maybe not so simple, but who hasn't asked themselves what white people in Kentucky are doing on Saturday nights?
The only state where "Gettin' Lucky" is one of the most unlucky things that could happen.
There's just one problem with country music: it glorifies breaking both the laws of God and men. Here are a few of the worst offenses.
| STALKING Punishment: Up to 1 year in prison and $1,000 fine for first offense (Louisiana) |
At first glance, you may think country singer Tyler Farr's song "Redneck Crazy" is just another Texas Chainsaw Massacre installment. But it's really about a man who wants to "park this Silverado on your front lawn," also known as trespassing and destruction of property, "get my pissed off on" (very different than getting off by getting pissed on), and "lean my headlights into your bedroom windows" because his girlfriend was getting a little action on the side from a man with a smaller truck. I'm not kidding, though: "he can't amount to much, by the look of that little truck."
If all of that wasn't egregious enough, he also intends on throwing "empty beer cans at both of your shadows" from his truck.
Which brings us to the next moral infraction…
| DRINKING AND DRIVING Punishment: Up to $1,200 fine and 90-day license suspension for first offense (Alabama) |
The worst part is that car was a Transformer.
While country crooner Jason Aldean is "swervin' like I'm George Jones" down a country road, he admits that he's got "an ice cold beer sittin' in the console" in his song, "Dirt Road Anthem."
Country's newest heartthrobs Florida Georgia Line mention that "a little something bumping, thump, thumping on the wheel ride, the mix in our drink's a little stronger than you think" in their new single "This Is How We Roll." That bump, thump, thumping may just be a fine member of the Florida and/or Georgia State Patrol knocking on your window ready to "roll" you right back to the station.
| CRIMINAL HOMICIDE Punishment: Death or life without parole for capital offense (Texas) |
RIP Buzz Lightyear.
Well, we've got women chronicling pre-meditated murder in both The Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" and Miranda Lambert's "Gunpowder and Lead," but because both of those are women responding to domestic violence, thus possibly considered morally defensible to some people (but not the State), we'll ignore them.
However, in "Ol' Red," Blake Shelton laments: "Well, I caught my wife with another man and it cost me 99." You may think that this was merely another prison blues ballad, but we learn that the entire song narrates a tale of the protagonist playing wingman for a blue-tick hound that was "pretty as she could be" so that he can escape, and we can rally around him. Considering he talks about everyone and their dog's sexual exploits except his own, it's not hard to imagine what prison was like.
| THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF TAYLOR SWIFT Punishment: Eternal damnation (Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Creed) |
It's universally known that Taylor Swift is above reproach. Common knowledge says that this phenomenon is propagated by everyone's fear that she'll put them in a song. But what if it's because she's a demon forged from gnashing teeth in the deepest sulfur lakes of hell that feeds off of the tears and money of our children?
1. Lust
In "22," Taylor Swift exclaims in an outburst of ardor: "You look like bad news, I gotta have you." And again for emphasis, "I gotta have you."
2. Gluttony
Taylor talks about a bitchin' party in "Love Story" with ball gowns and dancing and gardens and balconies. Could be a little much? Sure, she does use two analogies that are totally novel and have never ever been done before in referencing The Scarlet Letter, as well as Romeo and Juliet. Giving her that creatively is still overshadowed by the fact that the song and video are loosely based upon a story about two families that were so excessively wealthy, the most menacing trouble plaguing them was what their last names were.
3. Greed
Taylor Swift does critically examine the fame, fortune, and flashing lights in "The Lucky One," but she made $55 million last year, bringing her net worth to $200 million. You don't get that sort of money by climbing down from a sycamore tree and giving half of what you own to the poor.
4. Sloth
Taylor Swift seems to be working pretty hard for all of that money. Yet in "Mine" she talks about her significant other waiting tables while she was busy…being a flight risk? She also mentions "SITTING there by the water" with her boyfriend and also "LYING on the couch." Doesn't sound like she's got a whole lot going on, now does it? Jesus WALKED on the water and JUMPED onto the couch on Oprah to profess his love for Katie Holmes. Don't think about it, just move on.
5. Wrath
We all remember Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift. Well, maybe all of us except for Kanye, who still thinks he's part of an elaborate Truman Show. In Taylor's song "Mean," she doesn't forgive and forget, but clearly expresses that her rage lives on as she reduces her anger muse to a "liar" and "pathetic." After threatening to tell her ex's friends that he's gay (which she clearly intends condescendingly), she commits arson to fuel the fire of her vengeance in "Picture to Burn."
6. Envy
In high school, everyone had that bitchy girl in homeroom named Ashley who had perfect blonde hair, perfect skin, no freckles, and twirled her hair and bobbed side to side gracefully as she laughed and reported you to the principal for stealing her toe nail clippings. We get it. But when Taylor Swift's "Ashley" starts a relationship with her guy friend, she isn't exactly happy for them in the song "You Belong With Me."
7. Pride
Pride is often seen as the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins. It's the Bruce Lee riding atop a predator drone after an 8-ball of deadly sins. Taylor Swift's self-righteousness is thinly-veiled in the songs "Dear John" and again in "Mean." Her pride is most clearly demonstrated by "We Are Never Getting Back Together," in which she explains why she's done with her ex and she's such a catch (but not enough of a catch for her guy friend in "You Belong With Me" apparently).