As we have discussed in recent articles there are six themes that most of the country songs can be placed in; love, breaking up, drinking, patriotism, religion, and country living. In this article, I am going to discuss the themes of drinking, patriotism, and country living.
The next theme of the country songs is drinking and partying. There are quite a few country songs about drinking and partying. Most drinking songs can be divided into two subthemes: drinking to forget and drinking to have a good time. I have found three examples of drinking to forget songs, which are “All My Friends Say” by Luke Bryan, “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On” by Neal McCoy, and “Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley. The first song, “All My Friends Say” is about this guy who woke up the morning after going out to stuff in his house strewn around. He then called his friends to find out what had happen and his friends told him that after his ex walked into the bar, he started to do shots to forget she was even there. From what the rest of the song talks about, I would say that he forgot and made a fool of himself. The next song about drinking to forget is “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On”. This song talks about a guy name Billy at a bar because his girlfriend left him and he is hurting bad, so he is drinking to forget about her. The song then goes on to talk about everything that happens to him that night at the bar with his beer goggles on. The last drinking to forget song “Whiskey Lullaby” is rather sad with a sad ending. In this song, a girl dumped her true love and the guy started drinking whiskey to forget about her. He could never drink enough to forget about her and killed himself from drinking too much. After they buried him, the woman started drinking to forget about her guilt about what happened. She could not forget her guilt either and ended up drinking herself to death too. In the end, they ended up together in the after life.
I also have three examples of drinking to have a good time. They are “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall off” by Joe Nichols, “Beer Run” by Garth Brooks, and “Keg in the Closet” by Kenny Chesney. “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” talks about a woman who is going out with her friends for margaritas. Her boyfriend is concerned because he has seen her drink tequila before and knows that she likes to take her clothes off when she gets drunk. Thoughout the song, he keeps telling the audience about how good of a time she is having and how every one will talk about it tomorrow. The next song is “Beer Run”, which talks about a bunch of guys that live in a dry county, so they make a beer run every weekend to get beer. It talks about how they move fast to get to the county line and on the way back how they have a good time. Then they talk about making the run the next day because all their beer is gone already. The last song about drinking to have a good time is “Keg in the Closet”. This song talks about their life in their college days when they had so much fun with a keg in the closet. They say that they did whatever they wanted and had fun learning new lessons and as long as they had their keg in the closet. So let the good times roll.
Then there is the theme of patriotism. There are quite a few country songs talking about patriotism whether they are older or newer singers, because in this country we are always trying to promote our love for our soldiers. A few examples of these songs are “American Solider” by Toby Keith, “Johnny Reb” by Johnny Horton, and “Letters from Home” by John Michael Montgomery. “American Solider” is about a solider who is fighting across seas and is away from his family. He talks about why he does his job and how he does not get some of the luxuries that the other Americans have. He goes on to say how proud he is to be defending our freedom and what it means to be an American solider. The next song, “Johnny Reb”, also talks about patriotism. In this song, the singer is talking about how Johnny Reb has worked hard fighting in the Civil War for what he believed in. It also talks about how he fought through everything and that the country was proud of him even though he fought for the other side. After the end of the war, the whole country was proud of how he had fought and was sad when he died. The last patriotic song is “Letters from Home”, which is about a solider who has received many letters from home. It talks about him reading the letter and how he would never read everything that was in the letter to his buddies, who were sore about it. In the end, his father finally wrote him and the solider was crying but he wiped away his tears and got back to work. These are just some of the really good songs that talk about having patriotism.
Lastly the theme is country living. There are 3 sub themes for the country living theme: tractors, living on a farm, and cowboys. There are a few songs that are about different types of tractors, whether it be an actual brand of tractor or just riding and using the tractor, like “International Harvester” by Craig Morgan, “She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy” by Kenny Chesney, and “John Deere Green” by Joe Diffie. “International Harvester” is about a farmer who is working on his farm in his International Harvester tractor. The song also talks about how he causes traffic jams on the highway because of his International Harvester tractor and that everyone needs to keep their deer hunting shirt on, that he is just doing his job. The next song, “She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy”, is about a woman who loves tractors, especially the guy running the tractor. The tractor is what turns her on and she loves riding around on it doing the chores on the farm. Her favorite type of tractor is John Deere. The last song, “John Deere Green”, is about two farm kids that met in high school. The guy professed his love by climbing to the top of the water tower and painting a 10 foot heart in John Deere green, which is her favorite type of tractor. Many times throughout the song the guy, Billy Bob, confuses his love to his girl, Charlene, on the water tower in John Deere green. They got married and he still confesses their love in John Deere green, their favorite type of tractor.
The next sub theme of country living is living on the farm. I have found three examples of this theme: “Down on the Farm” by Time McGraw, “Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm” by Montgomery Gentry, and “Welcome to the Farm” by Luke Bryan. “Down on the Farm” is about what farm kids do on the weekends. They all go to someone’s place and hang out, with their music blaring. There is no need to worry if it was to start raining because they all just head into the barn and keep the party going. The next song, “Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm”, is about how this guy lives on a farm and the town is growing around the farm, but the father won’t sell it. Even though the cows are getting out in the fast food parking lot and the tractors are backing up traffic, the father won’t sell the farm because farm life is too good for them. The last song, “Welcome to the Farm”, is about a guy taking his girlfriend to the farm for the first time. They love the feel of the farm life because it is so laid back and easy going.
The last theme for country living is cowboys. Three examples for the cowboys theme is “Good Ride Cowboy” by Garth Brooks, “100% Cowboy” by Jason Meadows, and “Should’ve been a Cowboy” by Toby Keith. “Good Ride Cowboy” is a tribute to the cowboy and country singer Chris LeDoux, who had passed away. It talks about his experiences being a cowboy and being on the road. The next song, “100% Cowboy”, is about a man who is a regular cowboy, trying to set everyone straight on what a real cowboy is. A real cowboy, according to the song, is a gun toting, gives you the deer hunting shirt off his back, up at the crack of dawn, and doesn’t take any crap man. In the end, he compares himself to Chris LeDoux just to let you know what a real cowboy is. The last song, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy”, is about how the guy wishes that he had chosen to be a cowboy, who can rope, ride, wear a six-shooter, riding a pony on a cattle drive, stealing the young girl’s hearts, and singing camp fire songs. He thinks about his the life he could have had if he had chosen the life of being a cowboy. He thinks that it would be a good life.
Now you have idea of how country songs can be split into the six different themes, love, breaking up, drinking, patriotism, religion, and country living. Of course, these are not the only themes for the songs but most of songs in general can be categorized into one of these themes. Many themes have sub themes to them that can be split into smaller themes. There is also a good chance that if you need a song to fit the situation that you are going through in you life, you will find a country song that will fit. The good thing about country music is that it is very down to earth and will pertain to a normal person’s life. You don’t have to be very rich to be able to relate to these songs.
write by martinez
