Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid

[koganbot]

I'M BACK! Well, I was always here, but my column is back, dealing with an issue that has stirred the hearts and shaken the minds of many a poptimist: what is the nature of legacy and continuity in country music; or, if my mother blows her house to pieces, does that mean I have to blow my house to pieces too when I grow up?

The Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love this one, Frank.

[koganbot]

Thank you.

What is the role of country music in Japan? (I assume there must be, since Japan has appropriated pretty much all of U.S. pop music at some time or other.) And - this being a very different question - is there anything like the American Southeast in Japan, with a rural or exrural populace, lots of inferiority complexes, and music that's trying simultaneously to and portray itself as hewing to the essence of the rural, traditional past?

[koganbot]

trying simultaneously to and portray itself as hewing to the essence of the rural, traditional past

That is, trying simultaneously to MODERNIZE and portray itself as hewing to the essence of the rural, traditional past.

[koganbot]

Weird thing is that if you see the video of the Reba and Kelly version you can't really make sense of what's happening if you don't know the backstory provided by the original Kelly version; so you have to figure out that in the Reba version Kelly is playing Reba's mother, whom the grown-up Reba is going into the past to observe in her travails.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I was sitting on the bus on Tuesday morning and thought, "I wonder if Frank is still doing Rules of the Game. I should check LJ when I get into work." And then I got into work and remembered it was Tuesday, and was profoundly sad on so many levels. So basically I have been waiting all week for this, and you did not disappoint. Nothing intelligent to say about it yet, as a result, but:

Rodney Atkins plays intergenerational continuity for laughs in “Cleaning This Gun”: he recalls the time in high school he came to a girl’s house to pick her up while the girl’s dad casually mentions he’s going to be up all night “cleaning this gun.”

This actually happened to my parents! Maybe that's why I like country, despite the fact that it basically doesn't exist here.

[koganbot]

The LV Weekly ran out of money in its freelance budget in late November, so basically I was given December off, and being my neurotic self I managed to take an extra couple of weeks off when I couldn't get myself to write anything...

Anyway, I'm glad people are noticing/caring.

[koganbot]

Here's the song; first thing up on Rodney Atkins' MySpace.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

This column reminded me a little of a brief comment backnforth I had about Flyleaf and Christian rock with Dan Radosh, who's currently writing a (likely excellent) book on Christian popular culture called Rapture Ready!. What I love most about his analysis of Christian subcultures is his absolute refusal to engage simply as a condescending outsider -- he really seems to understand how these communities work (see also his latest Huffington Post blog gig here).

Anyway, we were talking about a favorite Huckabee phrase, "vertical politics," and its relationship to "vertical" in the Christian music world: simply put, "vertical" Christian music is performer-to-God, "horizontal" is performer-to-audience. And one thing I noted was that occasionally (like in the case of Flyleaf, but not in the case of, say, Jessie Daniels) it's precisely this "vertical" relationship that makes me interested in the music; that is, it's a subject matter -- and by extension a set of values, a culture -- that I don't have much personal access to (regardless of how conflicted I am about the reasoning behind or expression of the cultural norms and practices). It's much more interesting to me to hear Flyleaf singing "Perfect in weakness / Running in just your strength alone" and knowing that they're essentially prostrate before God, giving themselves up. Like, that's self-pi(e)ty.

And, semi-related, I think the key difference (aside from the performance, obviously) in "East Northumberland High" (Samantha Moore v. Miley Cyrus) is the simple "edit" of the line "just because I wanted you then" to "just because I liked you back then." "I don't want you" on its own tends to be kind of unsatsifying as a pop trope -- obviously as a theme there's a lot of power in it in a million possible ways, but just the phrase itself is hard to energize. "I don't like you," on the other hand, isn't as overused, hence doesn't have its meaning made up for it going in; just like in Skye's "I Don't Really Like You," in "East Northumberland High" the bratty little slip of acid there really hurts. I can imagine not being wanted, even by someone who once wanted me, but the idea that someone doesn't like me is harder to come to terms with. And in this context it is so passive-aggressive hallway dis -- you know they do this EVERY DAY between periods. And she can still want him (when he's standing next to her, the chemicals react -- can you feel it?) and never actually like him. A teen tragedy.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Woops, here's the original Radosh post, and here's a recent column.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Ummm that "Northumberland High" bit was supposed to be about the codes and conventions of teenpop that I tend to find interesting when done right. Though I'm not sure what teenpop's (or country's for that matter) demographic really consists of, only what sort of codes its songs put forward.

[koganbot]

On the other hand, "I wanted you then" has more of a sexual implication than "I liked you back then."

(For those of you who are lurking, here's Samantha Moore's original version of "East Northumberland High," written by Samantha with Antonina Armato & Tim James and never released as far as I know except as an online stream, and here's Miley Cyrus's. And here's Samantha Moore's own MySpace page, which has stuff she does better than "East Northumberland High." (I think Miley's version crushes Samantha's version of "East Northumberland High.")

My building manager comments

[koganbot]

From: "Elizabeth"
To: "Frank Kogan"
Subject: Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid
Date: Friday, January 11, 2008 4:39 PM

Blow up your 'house' and you better do your self the favor of blowing up with it.

Have you heard any of the new Merle Haggard release. He gets political.

e:-)

[koganbot]

From: "Richard Kogan"
To: "Frank Kogan"
Subject: RE: Rules Of The Game #26: Because Of You I Am Afraid
Date: Thursday, January 17, 2008 8:04 AM

Or maybe practically no one (except you) listens to all the lyrics of any song - they just pick out the part that fits what they're looking for, regardless of the actual content. So the song is country because it is so easy to pick out the country parts of the song. This is a simpler explanation, right?

_________________________

Na na na na,
Na na na na,
Hey, Hey,
Goodbye.

Well, the full lyrics actually are imploring the protagonist's ex-girlfriend to break up with her current flame - who doesn't truly love her, of course - and come back. Standard story, nicely done, and since there is no hint in the lyrics that this will actually work, it is a song of loss with a smidgen of hope, but no realistic expectation.

But the refrain has a life of its own, so that whenever the Redskins are actually beating Dallas (or the equivalent throughout the entire sporting world), then in the fourth quarter the stands start rocking with Na Na Na Na, a song of triumph, put-down, and domination. Who cares about the actual lyrics?

It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to

[koganbot]

From: "Frank Kogan"
To: "Richard Kogan"
Subject: It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to
Date: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:51 AM

Well, in this case, I'd say the song is country because it's by a long-established country singer. A version of "Jingle Bells" by a country singer would be considered country too, though I don't know if any established Christmas carol (as opposed to an original with a Christmas theme) has ever actually been a hit single in country (I think the original version of "Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer" hit in country, but it wasn't yet an established carol; its being a hit made it one).

But here my real question (and I could have made this clearer) wasn't whether the audience would accept the song as country but whether they'd accept the message, no matter how they defined the song generically - whether they'd want to hear it on the radio and/or download it, which is how a song gets on the charts. You're right that people don't pay close attention to lyrics, usually. In this one the line "Because of you I am afraid" is pretty hard to miss no matter how casually or absentmindedly you listen to the track, or what else you'd think the words were about, but how you interpret it is a different matter: specifically you might not figure out that the "you" is the singer's mother [or mother and dad], since if you're not listening attentively you might well think "you" is an ex-boyfriend, as I did originally.

A friend of mine told me last night that she first heard Reba's version when Reba sang it on Oprah the day after the album was released. I just watched it now (streamed here: http://forum.generationnetwork.co.uk/showthread.php?t=20027), and I was surprised that they didn't talk much about its content other than that it was personal and moving. (Reba made a point that Kelly wrote it at 16, and said: "It touched my heart so much. It's such a relatable song that a lot of people can relate to. I just started cryin', and she [Kelly] looked at me - oh! - and she had to come over and hug my neck 'cause I was cryin'.") But my guess is that a sizable number of country listeners know what the song is about and that they don't mind it. And probably most of these listeners are then quite happy to turn around and listen to the country songs where parental and grandparental lives are considered roots and where parental and grandparental advice is considered wisdom.

(As to whether country fans are listening to such "roots and wisdom" songs because they believe them or because they're not sure and they want reassurance, I'd say it's in-between but with the need for reassurance mighty strong. A listener can like songs that raise doubts and like songs that quell those very same doubts. Which isn't to say that "Because Of You" raises a huge amount of doubts, but it is something I've never heard in a country song. But then, my country listening isn't all that extensive.)