Lately, I've been revisiting country music, a genre I haven't actively listened to since my childhood. As a boy, my dad would play country on the am radio as he worked on the car out in the driveway. I still remember the directness and lack of guile in those songs sung by Conway Twitty, George Jones, Tammy Wynette and the like.
Listening in now, I'm learning that the country music of today is much broader in scope, while still maintaining the simplicity of its past. It draws from other styles of American popular music that wouldn't be possible back in the day. Rap, hip hop, metal, and yes, even bubble gum pop up in the melange that constitutes modern country.
Jason Aldean, in one of many songs he's borrowed from talented fellow Georgia singer songwriter Brantley Gilbert, breaks out into a set of rap stanzas on Dirt Road Anthem. One live version of the song features Aldean in collaboration with rapper Ludacris.
And the aforementioned Gilbert, singing about backwoods partying, lays down some heavy metal in the song Kick It In The Sticks. Break dancers share the stage in Dierks Bentley's Sideways video, Kid Rock lifts a Warren Zevon melody in All Summer Long, and Toby Keith's Beers Ago sports a Cyndi Lauper inspired moog synth line.
But the crossover theme I find most intriguing, is also the one that operates on a more subtle level. It's an underlying Buddhist sensibility that informs many of the songs on country radio these days. I doubt it's intentional, as there aren't that many dharma practioners in country music.
More likely, its just the simplicity and directness inherent in the themes presented.
Zen's focus on being present and in the moment pop up frequently. As Easton Corbin sings on Roll With It, "baby we'll roll with it, won't think about it too much", he then goes on to list a whole sequence of those magic moments, the ones that come from mindful presence.
In Take a Back Road, Rodney Atkins echoes the zen road to nowhere, in his lines evoking "a curving, winding, twisting, dusty path to nowhere, with the wind blowing through my baby's hair". It's nothing so much as a twanged out Kerouac On the Road.
Vipassana, and its mindful attention to sensation and the moment are all over David Nail's Let It Rain. Singing about the emotions of a breakup, he invokes "let it rain, let it pour, she don't love me any more, let it come down on me". There's no avoiding the moment here, rather diving into it with all receptors open.
Vipaka, the ripening of karma, is the central theme of Dierks Bentley's late night adventure What Was I Thinking. "Becky was a beauty from south Alabama, her daddy had a heart like a nine pound hammer, I think he even did a little time in the slammer, what was I thinking?".
We pretty much already know this one by heart. He's seduced into a night of carousing with Becky, shadowed by dad and his twelve gauge shotgun, police sirens, badass barroom brawlers and the like. As he runs outside the bar "hood slidin' like Bo Duke", you feel like you're in the middle of a 1970s tv episode.
Closing the song with the line, "I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?", we have it all right there: the mind body split, the First Noble Truth, all is dukkha, dissatisfaction. Dierks knows the way out, whenever he's ready to engage it.
So tune in, and if so inclined, dive in to the moment, and sing along with me and Brantley Gilbert, "let's get this thing started, it's my kinda party". The magic of right here, right now, because this moment is all we truly have.
Listening in now, I'm learning that the country music of today is much broader in scope, while still maintaining the simplicity of its past. It draws from other styles of American popular music that wouldn't be possible back in the day. Rap, hip hop, metal, and yes, even bubble gum pop up in the melange that constitutes modern country.
Jason Aldean, in one of many songs he's borrowed from talented fellow Georgia singer songwriter Brantley Gilbert, breaks out into a set of rap stanzas on Dirt Road Anthem. One live version of the song features Aldean in collaboration with rapper Ludacris.
And the aforementioned Gilbert, singing about backwoods partying, lays down some heavy metal in the song Kick It In The Sticks. Break dancers share the stage in Dierks Bentley's Sideways video, Kid Rock lifts a Warren Zevon melody in All Summer Long, and Toby Keith's Beers Ago sports a Cyndi Lauper inspired moog synth line.
But the crossover theme I find most intriguing, is also the one that operates on a more subtle level. It's an underlying Buddhist sensibility that informs many of the songs on country radio these days. I doubt it's intentional, as there aren't that many dharma practioners in country music.
More likely, its just the simplicity and directness inherent in the themes presented.
Zen's focus on being present and in the moment pop up frequently. As Easton Corbin sings on Roll With It, "baby we'll roll with it, won't think about it too much", he then goes on to list a whole sequence of those magic moments, the ones that come from mindful presence.
In Take a Back Road, Rodney Atkins echoes the zen road to nowhere, in his lines evoking "a curving, winding, twisting, dusty path to nowhere, with the wind blowing through my baby's hair". It's nothing so much as a twanged out Kerouac On the Road.
Vipassana, and its mindful attention to sensation and the moment are all over David Nail's Let It Rain. Singing about the emotions of a breakup, he invokes "let it rain, let it pour, she don't love me any more, let it come down on me". There's no avoiding the moment here, rather diving into it with all receptors open.
Vipaka, the ripening of karma, is the central theme of Dierks Bentley's late night adventure What Was I Thinking. "Becky was a beauty from south Alabama, her daddy had a heart like a nine pound hammer, I think he even did a little time in the slammer, what was I thinking?".
We pretty much already know this one by heart. He's seduced into a night of carousing with Becky, shadowed by dad and his twelve gauge shotgun, police sirens, badass barroom brawlers and the like. As he runs outside the bar "hood slidin' like Bo Duke", you feel like you're in the middle of a 1970s tv episode.
Closing the song with the line, "I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?", we have it all right there: the mind body split, the First Noble Truth, all is dukkha, dissatisfaction. Dierks knows the way out, whenever he's ready to engage it.
So tune in, and if so inclined, dive in to the moment, and sing along with me and Brantley Gilbert, "let's get this thing started, it's my kinda party". The magic of right here, right now, because this moment is all we truly have.
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