This is what most of country music is composed of, phoned-in folk songs. As a genre, it’s about as tepid as other pop music. It tends to wash through the brain like sludgy water going through a drainpipe and down into the septic field, carrying the concepts of the little bitty people leading little bitty lives with it.
My children have told me the music I like is basically Mexican country. Once, they happened to make this accusation while one of the Mexican stations was playing on the radio. Well, I suppose one said it and the other agreed because Mexican radio was playing. The best part of knowing a language nobody in your house understands is being able to employ plausible deniability, even though the lyrics pouring out to the cadence of a fast two-step are all about the ranching life, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and riding horses. Still: deny, deny, deny. It’s not country music!
Folk music, of course, isn’t always phoned-in. It has a history of incorporating all aspects of a given culture, even the very uncomfortable ones. Well, those uncomfortable stories can be phoned-in, too. This is no doubt because the average person doesn’t like to expand their audio interests with complex or unusual instrumentation and sound, even if the edgier songs are on their radar of life existence. So, it’s quite possible that musically dull pop country songs tell emotionally exciting tales of the fallout from adultery and drunkenness, for example.
This is igual to the Mexican music I listen to: in both regards. Despite that banda and mariachi can be very complex musically, many of the songs sound similar. Similar arrangements, melodies, etc. I have often bemoaned that they pulled out the twenty-piece band members with their lavish, matching suits just to play a song that sounded like the last three I heard on the radio. There also happen to be many Mexican songs about adultery and drunkenness. One concept that seems peculiar to Mexican folk, though, is the narcocorrido, that is, songs about drug dealers. This is a harsh reality that is eulogized in numerous songs, made famous by bands such as Los Tigres del Norte. I don’t have a problem with these songs as others might. They are cataloging a lifestyle that often leads to prison or death. This is quintessential to folk music. Now I suppose they will have to write songs dedicated to the dark tales of the narcocorrido singers who were murdered because that is also history, raw and dark, in the making.
I used to love singing American folk songs such as Long Black Veil, but I would shudder when I contemplated the stories. At some point, the story in songs like that happened: an adulterous man went to the gallows because he wouldn’t admit he was sleeping with his best friend’s wife the night of a murder. It’s probably happened many times in history, actually. Now, of course, I occasionally sing narcocorridos — maybe because I’m learning to play one on the accordion or because it’s a catchy tune. To be honest, most narcocorridos don’t reach my heart like other Mexican songs. I’m partial to the ones about love. Who isn’t?
Love songs cross every genre, don’t they? From banal to classical to heartfelt singer-songwriter (otherwise known as folk singers), love fills the lyrics. Love is truly the universal theme among humans in every walk of life, at every stratum. If you want to meet true folk music, you will find it in songs of love. I believe I briefly mentioned this concept in my post about the left being unable to write poetry, but I suppose I’m reiterating it because it’s true. What appeals to humans is folk music, and folks love love.
Because I started writing this post at my son’s basketball game earlier, I have no idea where I was going with it. Competitive games and bleachers filled with cheering families make me profoundly uncomfortable; I was thus using this as a distraction. I suppose it ultimately had to do with the snowstorm that blew through this morning, nipping the spring birds and bees and fluttering white butterflies. Love was frozen in a moment, life snuffed out under a layer of frost. I’m being dramatic! Yes!
Thankfully, I discovered this song nearly twenty years ago, and it has always renewed life, energy, and love to my heart with its ardency.
Jill Domschot 
“What kind of music does your band play?”
“Adultery, drunkenness, and drug trafficking.”
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