Country Music, Comfort and Christianity

We can glean much from country music:

Allow me a few prefatory remarks: Like most other folks, I very much like music, and all sorts of styles and genres of it. Rock and blues were my main likes while a teenager. I enjoyed southern rock back then, and that was heavily tinged with country, as in the Charlie Daniel Band and the Marshall Tucker Band. And groups like New Riders of the Purple Sage – a spin off from the Grateful Dead – did lots of country rock.

Many other groups can be mentioned, such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Emmylou Harris. Also, some rock groups released albums entirely devoted to country, such as the Byrds’ 1968 album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and Leon Russell’s 1973 album, Hank Wilson’s Back, vol. 1.

I did not always like country music, but I was exposed to some of it early on at home. When my family finally got a record player, my dad would get some country albums. Buck Owens may have been one artist he had liked. One song I recall was “The Wabash Cannonball” by Roy Acuff.

But it was only later that some other aspects of country started to grow on me, such as western swing, as in the earlier Bob Wills and the more recent Asleep at the Wheel. And as I dipped further into country, I noted that just as rock was heavily influenced by the blues, so too rock has been heavily influenced by country. And both blues and country were influenced by black gospel.

All this has been coming to a head for me of late, because of an American documentary series on country music aired on a documentary channel on my Foxtel subscription. I stumbled upon the first or second episode, and managed to catch most of the rest of them thereafter.

I refer to Country Music created and directed by Ken Burns. The eight-part, 16-hour series premiered on PBS on September 15, 2019. It is very well done, and covers all the bases, looking at the very beginnings of country, blue grass and the like, up to the late 90s. All up some 175 hours of interviews involving over 100 artists were behind the making of the series. This in part is how it is described:

“Explore the history of a uniquely American art form: country music. From its deep and tangled roots in ballads, blues and hymns performed in small settings, to its worldwide popularity, learn how country music evolved over the course of the 20th century, as it eventually emerged to become America’s music.” https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/country-music   

Here I want to discuss the final segment that I watched last night. For some reason I was driven to tears around 7 or 8 times while watching Episode 8. Music of course can heavily appeal to the emotions, and as we know, the common tear-jerker elements of your basic country song are these: ‘I lost my girl, I lost my dog, and I lost my truck,’

Three songs in particular really hit me. I am pretty sure I had not heard any of them before last night, but the themes presented in them were quite touching to me for various reasons. Indeed, they choked me up. So let me speak to each of these three songs and artists.

“Where’ve You Been”

Kathy Mattea released this in November 1989. It was co-written by her husband, Jon Vezner, and Don Henry and it won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1990. As the documentary explains, it had to do with Vezner’s grandparents who had loved each other for so long. But she developed dementia, and soon did not recognise others, even family members. But one day her husband came in and she right away said, “Where’ve you been?”

Kathy tells the story this way:

It’s a true story about Jon’s grandparents. They had both gotten very sick and were in the same hospital, but didn’t know it. His grandmother had been slowly losing it, and she didn’t recognize anybody. She was in unfamiliar surroundings, so she finally quit talking altogether.

 

Jon was there visiting, and he was up seeing his grandfather; he said to the nurse, “Has anybody brought him down to see her?” She said no, and he asked if he could do that. They said yes, so he wheeled his grandfather into his grandmother’s room. His grandfather kept stroking her hair, saying, “Look at her hair. Nobody has hair like grandma,” and she looked at him and said, “Where have you been?” It was the first thing she had said in weeks.

 

When Jon told me the story for the first time, it was before we had even gotten engaged, and he just cried and cried. When he played the song for me and the first chorus came around, I knew where he was going with the lyric, and I just couldn’t believe he could be that vulnerable as a writer, to put that moment in a song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl5Uog-MDGo

The lyrics to the song are found in that link.

That certainly teared me up – and still does even as I am typing this – because I have friends who are going through this right now. And it also heavily impacted me personally, since my wife, who died of cancer almost two years ago, had tumours all over the place, including in her brain.

The very last day she spent with me in my house before spending the rest of her days in several hospitals was the worst – even for me. That morning was the first time that I noticed that her mind was starting to go. That shocked me to my core. Yes, she suffered in so many ways physically, but to see her mind going was really hard to take. She was always such a bright and articulate woman, and to see that start to be undone was so hard to take.

“Go Rest High on That Mountain”

Another song that brought me to tears last night was this song written by Vince Gill and released in August 1995. He had started writing the song following the death of another country music singer in 1989, but only finished it after the death of his older brother in 1993. The lyrics and video links are these:

I know your life
On earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain
You weren’t afraid to face the devil
You were no stranger to the rain

 

Go rest high on that mountain
Son your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

 

Oh, how we cried the day you left us
We gathered ’round your grave to grieve
Wish I could see the angels faces
When they hear your sweet voice sing

 

Go rest high on that mountain
Son your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

 

Go rest high on that mountain
Son your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

 

Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jXrmAKBBTU

“If Tomorrow Never Comes”

A final song that I found to be so moving was one by Garth Brooks, released in August 1989. It was named Favorite Country Single in the American Music Awards of 1991. It was his first recorded love song. As someone who lost the love of my life, I can relate to the lyrics – I could have done so much better:

Sometimes, late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She’s lost in peaceful dreams, so I turn out the lights
And lay there in the dark

 

And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel about her in my heart

 

If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she’s my only one?
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face this world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last?
If tomorrow never comes

 

‘Cause I’ve lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret that my true feelings for them
Never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance where there’s no second chance
To tell her how I feel

 

‘Cause if tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she’s my only one?
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face this world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last?
If tomorrow never comes

 

So tell that someone that you love
Just what you’re thinking of
If tomorrow never comes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M5HE5q11oY

Now I should mention that while many country artists are or were Christians, and many country songs deal with gospel themes and truths, I am not aware if any of these three artists I have discussed here are believers (although I just learned that Gill is married to Christian music singer Amy Grant). And their songs are not necessarily Christian in nature.

But as I mentioned, like the blues, a lot of country songs deal with the real world – with what ails us, what hurts us, and what grieves us, and so on. Suffering, heartache, loss, and hardship are constant themes. Just consider three titles by one artist, Hank Williams: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (1949), “Cold, Cold Heart” (1951), and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” (1953). These are issues common to us all.

Of course how we deal with them makes all the difference. We can drown out our sorrows in drink and drugs (something a number of country artists did) or in other unhelpful ways. The Christian offers a better path forward. And being aware of suffering and heartbreak can make us more sensitive to the needs of others and give us opportunity to present the hope and comfort that is found in Christ.

And so many country songs followed on from old gospel tunes. Here Hank Williams tells us how the first song he ever learned was taught to him by his grandmother: “I Dreamed That the Great Judgement Morning”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M8qsXhiemQ

The commonality of suffering is why so many country artists did sing the old hymns, spirituals and gospel tunes. And some country stars have been outspoken about their Christian faith. But when so much of what you write and sing about involves pain, loss and death, as in the blues and country, then it is a natural response to always recall the good news of the Christian gospel.

We can learn a lot from country music.

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