The Syllabus
Funky blues
Keen-toed shoes
High water pants
Saddy night dance
Red soda water
And anybody’s daughter
—“Country Lover” by Maya Angelou, Pulitzer and Grammy winner
I am a serious country music aficionada.
— Maya Angelou, a Lee Ann Womack super fan
It was all there in the songs of Loretta Lynn. Songs about what women not just desired, but needed, to survive. Songs about never wanting to love again pressed up against songs about falling in love. She sung the lonely songs better the older she got, which some people might consider sad but I consider necessary.
We are the same. There is no difference anywhere in the world. People are people. They laugh, cry, feel, and love, and music seems to be the common denomination that brings us all together. Music cuts through all boundaries and goes right to the soul.
Learning Objectives
1. Country Music—and its supposedly working-class audience—is blacker, gayer, queerer, more feminine and smarter than its mainstream institutions or popular opinion would have you believe. Understanding country music requires critical approaches to overcome bullshit industry narratives.
2. Country Music is defined as much as by its outlaws, outcasts, and fringe characters and counter-programming as its mainstream.
3. Despite rhetoric about being "real"—“three chords and the truth”—or what some might call “authentic,” part of Country’s allure is actually romantic reimagining of deeply flawed spaces that allows its audience to find, in the space of a song, a “home” that does not really exist outside the listener’s mind (or, occasionally, a really good bar or concert venue).
Prerequisites
You don’t have to know shit from applebutter coming in.
If you’re not sure if this is for you or those learning objectives aren’t making sense, think about it like this: have you ever felt uncomfortable with, embarrassed by, left something less than satisfied by, deeply curious about, or excluded by Country Music? Do you love at least some country songs anyway? Can you maybe not live without Country Music?
Well, come on in.
Corequisites
If you’re really curious about this, there are more talented writers and creators out there than me that can help you understand this stuff.
· Cocaine & Rhinestones — A pod on 20th century Country Music and also a thing that has changed my life. Tyler Mahan Coe’s last name might be familiar, but he’s one of the most committed and dogged historians out there. There’s also a book version based on the second season, which is the definitive work on George Jones. Coe’s at work on the third season.
· Don’t Rock the Inbox — Veteran Country journalists Marissa Moss and Natalie Weiner making the discourse better. Not a bad way to find some playlists either.
· No Fences Review — Veteran journalists David Cantwell and Charles Hughes give you more great conversations and recommendations.
· Color Me Country Radio with Rissi Palmer — An invaluable source for substantive, enjoyable conversations about country that don’t happen in many other places. Palmer is very smart and very cool.
Required Reading
When I teach first-year college students, I tell them over and over that you can only evaluate a source in context, which is a fancy way of saying that it’s the way you use books, articles, songs, podcasts, etc. that matters. That’s why I don’t love it when my fellow professors write a syllabus that’s just a reading list and a line about attendance, because that doesn’t say anything about pedagogy or the type of discourse they care about, what's welcome and what's not. To that end, instead of giving you another generic list of Country Music books (surprise, surprise, we all recommend Country Music USA!), let’s make the wealth of excellent Country Music materials part of the lectures and "homework."
Also, I don’t think it’s right to make students pay for books when tuition is so goddamn expensive. I know you’re not paying tuition, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t save some cash. If I mention something that’s not out there for free, please support your public library.
Class Policies
Look, we’re all curious about Country Music, but we’re also here for a good time. In my real, University-sanctioned classes, I have students read this excellent guide on class discussion. If that’s a little too homeworky for you, here are the main things:
· “Be curious, not judgmental” — Ted Lasso (sorry)
· (At the risk of being redundant) don’t be an asshole unless you’re being an asshole at the expense of record executives, abusers, misogynists, racists, etc. and, even then, only for those reasons.
Office Hours
If enough people enroll in this class* and seem to actually want it, I’ll start doing occasional office hours/AMAs.
*You know that this is just a conceit for me to write about Country Music and you to be a part of the discussion, right? There’s no registrar at the school of hard knocks, so if you want to talk, just holler.
Assignments
Write it down so you never forget
The harder you work, the luckier you get
–American Aquarium
Read and listen, as hard you can.
You don’t have to do anything, but I’d love it if you leave comments and tell your Country-curious friends.
Grading
You get an A+ for showing up, unless you make too many positive statements about Morgan Wallen. Wait…honestly, if you like Morgan Wallen, maybe you need this and deserve some credit for wanting to become a person of substance. Maybe that's actually the hardest work of all. Also, I’ve made plenty worse mistakes, and stones and glass houses and all that.
Course Schedule
Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Look, I’m just an underpaid "Professorial Lecturer" trying to do something I care about on the side. If some big shot paid me to write a book, I’d would structure it chronologically or by artist. The artist part is slightly more appealing because it allows for the narrative writing that makes biographies, autobiographies, and great feature articles so attractive.
Alas, no publishers have been forthcoming. To be fair, I've never reached out. So, I’m going to write what I’m able when I’m able and tag it to one of our learning objectives. I also imagine that all y’all are discovering this at different times, if you discover it at all, and are showing up to our astral classroom with varying levels of country music exposure, and that even I, he of unimpeachable knowledge and intellect, might learn something new and want to flesh that out here in this made-up-ass-class-cum-newsletter deal.
So, there is no course schedule. I will try to post every week, with every other week being a “lecture,” a longer essay connected to one of the learning objectives. The great bell hooks wanted to allow for spontaneity in her teaching, and I think she’s about as good a role model as you can find, so let’s see where this goes.