2006-06-10 06:43 | fche blog enun-dorsals country lament
Along with many colleagues, I attended our company’s mini-tradeshow: the Red Hat Summit in Nashville, TN.
The flights in GXRP were lovely, the Gaylord Opryland hotel was huge, my talk went all right, the food was great … but I want to comment a bit about the music. Particularly, the variety show at the famous “Grand Ole Opry”.
I haven’t been much of a fan of country music, but there are plenty of them out there, and I’m starting to see why. Where else can one hear crooning earnestly about subjects like:
- the changing relationship between father and daughter as she finds a boyfriend
- ivory-grip Colt ’45
- one’s favorite pickup truck
- a collection of virtues: honesty, simplicity, family love
- unabashed patriotism (“Stand up for the USA”)
- joy of baseball
All sorts of sappy stuff, if one comes in with the grey-tinted glasses of modern cynicism. It might even twitch pretension sensors like my own reservations about 1960s anti-war folk music, or its icons. And yet, the values being sung about tend to be so positive and gentle and human.