The other night I watched part of the Country Music Awards while lying in bed. I've never been a huge country music fan, but I think that's about to change. I'm telling you the truth, I sobbed through most of the hour and a half I watched! What is it about country music that evokes such emotion? My eyes were red and swollen, and my nose was stuffy, but it was cathartic!
Country singers have a gift for telling a story with words. Everything sounds so dramatic when sung by a country singer. They sing songs that speak to the experiences we all have shared, with love being a main topic: Finding love, losing love, forbidden love, even love for a pet! They sing songs of wanting someone you can't have, and the love that got away. Country singers sing songs of hard times and struggle, songs of triumph over adversity, songs of going home again!
All music brings you back to a time and a place when things were different, when YOU were different. Sometimes, if you close your eyes, you can almost swear you are back in the past. It can makes you feel alive and young again. Country singers have a knack for making any topic seem urgent and relevant. But it's not only the words, it's the country twang, and the look of the performer that touches us. It's all in the delivery! If Brad Paisley, with his stetson and worn blue jeans, sang a song about a toothache or a clogged drain (both of which I've experienced!), I'm sure it would have touched my heart as much as the others. The way country musicians perform, usually without a lot of fanfare, is what really allows you focus on the words of the song without any distraction. Most country musicians don't dress in costumes, pop out of cakes, or enter on a moving piano. No, mostly it's a guy or girl with his/her guitar, just making great music with lyrics you can actually understand!
Even if you didn't have the same exact experience, it can still move you to tears. Martina McBride sang, "I'm gonna love you through it,"a song about loving someone through cancer. She talks about getting the news, and how her husband held her close while she cried. The words brought me back to years ago when I suffered a miscarriage, and there were many days when my husband had to literally pick me up off the floor and hold me close or I would have stayed there all day.
Toward the end of the show, they did a tribute to Glenn Campbell, who now has Alzheimers. It was so sad, I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't joking when I said I cried for the entire hour and a half! I thought my husband would be disturbed by my sobbing and my outpouring of emotion, but no worries! He was snoring so loudly he didn't even hear me!
Oh well! I'm thinking that would make a great country song.
So...Does country music have the same effect on you? (The emotion, I mean, not the snoring!)
It's so funny, JoAnn, because I never was really a Country Music fan. Right before Neve was born, Todd started listening to more and more, and I have to tell you. I really like a lot of it. It really is all about story telling, and what English teacher wouldn't like that? Great post.
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