Back in February, Alan Allport and I argued about tolerance versus respect within a society. At the time, I promised to quote from Eugene Genovese's deeply strange The Southern Tradition to him, then gamely withdrew when I remembered I'd loaned it to an old college roommate. I stumbled across the book today while culling the shelves, and so can finally type up Genovese's observation, with the caveat that — like the Nashville Agrarians — Genovese is probably equating "northern" with "American".
There nevertheless remains a fundamental difference between northern and southern versions of religious tolerance. In the North, people are wont to say, "You worship God in your way, and we'll worship Him in ours." This delightful formulation says, in effect, that since religion is of little consequence anyway, why argue? In contrast, the southern version, well expressed in an old joke, says: "You worship God in your way, and we'll worship Him in His." From the early days of the Republic, when Baptists led the fight for religious freedom and the separation of church and state, white southerners have done rather well in living together with mutual respect and tolerance for each other's religious views. Always reminding themselves of human frailty, they are perfectly tolerant of some damned fool's right to choose eternal damnation. But they are not about to pretend that they regard another's religion as intrinsically equal to their own.Posted by Ben Brumfield at June 13, 2006 05:44 PM
Y're damn straight. I'll fight fer a Baptist's right to go to hell any day.
Posted by: Ralph Luker at June 13, 2006 07:40 PMI've been listening to some country music this week and I think the Modern Country playlist is getting more explicitly Christian in tone.
There's now a love song with lyrics to the effect of "I go to work... I go to church... I go on with my daily life... but I can't stop thinking of you..." In other words, universalizing Christian observance as a typical daily activity of the Everyman with whom the listener is expected to identify.
There's another one currently that's also specifically Christian but nicer & more traditional to my ear, in which the singer speaks of his hard-drinking dad's redeeming qualities. One verse tells how Dad sometimes shows up at church Sunday morning "with Saturday night on his breath," and the refrain goes: "He's an angel with no halo/and one wing in the fire."
I think this second one feels less like a symptom of a national slouch toward mandatory Christianity because it focuses specifically on religion in the life of the one highly individual sinner who's the subject of the song, whereas the first song treats observant Christianity as a necessary part of the background of a generic "normal" life. Does that make sense?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 20, 2006 05:29 PMYou and I have precisely opposite opinions of American culture's relationship with "mandatory Christianity", so I'll just note that and move along.
Do you have any points of comparison? Unless you count Bluegrass and Alt-Country, I haven't listened to much Nashville lately, but when I have, the thing that surprises me is that the themes seem to touch on more Everyman-style experiences than most pop culture does.
Certainly whatever mainstream rock has become rarely addresses people who have kids or jobs or marriages or mortgages. It's all either "Friends"-style twenty-somethings or teenagers annoyed at their parents. It's no real surprise since that's the most lucrative demographic for advertisers, but it has thematic effects. Songs may be about a lack of autonomy, but it's the kind imposed by external forces like parents or prison, rather than by adult responsability.
The assertion I'd like to challenge you on is that Nashville is "getting more explicitly Christian in tone." I've been listening the Louvin Brothers lately, who were a B-list Country duet in the 50's and 60's. Like many -- perhaps most -- Country singers of that era, they have secular songs like "If I Could Only Win Your Love" or "When I Stop Dreaming", but also several entire albums marketed to the Gospel market. You might get a kick out of "The Word 'Broadminded' is Spelled S-I-N", or my own favorite "Atomic Power". From what I understand, this was pretty typical -- I've recently heard some very old tracks of Johnny Cash reading Revelations played on the radio here.
My point is that you seem to be measuring contemporary Country against contemporary non-Country, then making a historical assertion about country music that may be entirely mistaken.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at June 20, 2006 06:03 PMWot, you tryin' to say I didn't stay up to watch the Red Sox win the Series? You and who else?
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Glad you like the "Atomic Power" song, but is the song older than the Uncle Tupelo band, then? As you probably know, Uncle Tupelo is a modern-day group with self-consciously lefty sympathies. I forget if they're a predecessor or a successor to Wilco, the group that recorded the "Mermaid Avenue" settings of Guthrie lyrics with Billy Bragg.
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Actually I'm comparing the country music I've heard on the radio this week with what has been on the car radio during our drives and stays in the inland West roughly since 1993. What I mean is I don't think so much "church" would have been part of the playlist ten years ago. Probably, though, you do have a point about Johnny Cash or the real old-timers who were revived in "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?"
Completely agreed that country music is much more about people with kids and jobs and debts & hence about a wider spectrum of experience. This week I've been swapping between country radio and the Springsteen's Greatest Hits CD, and of course Springsteen is talking about the same kind of world and the same sense of workaday life salted with quiet desperation. There was a country song on the radio last summer that went "Heads, Carolina/tails, California/somewhere greener/somewhere warmer./Heads, Carolina/I've got a quarter..." Not so far from "Born to Run," is it?
It's completely bizarre to me how a countryside culture with such a persistent cult of The Working Man can vote so persistently for the party of the CEOs. Cf. What's The Matter With Kansas?.
Then again not all country singers are actually right-wing. Look at Willie Nelson.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 21, 2006 12:18 PM