my songbook, pt. 3

Song #3 makes me a little bit embarrassed, but it represents an important step in my musical journey.

"Callin' Baton Rouge" -- Garth Brooks

When I was younger I would take great pleasure in ragging on my father for his affinity for some country music. He would put on his Tractors CD, and I would roll my eyes as he would bop along with "Baby Likes to Rock It."

It seemed that country music was destined to be shunned forever after it wasn't included in my "high school classic rock musical epiphany." This epiphany was almost single handedly engineered by Geoff Carson, who amassed a nice CD collection by preying on impressionable freshman such of myself, and gently coercing us into joining the BMG music service. Forced to choose 12 CDs at once, broke down my popular music-centric music tastes into the wonderful realms of classic rock. However the walls of ignorance against country music remained high and mighty.

The first concession I would make would be a few years later, in one of many late night discussions with one Oswald Cuervo. My junior year of high school, we logged some several hundred hours of reflection late night on Baum corridor. I've yet to replicate the frequency and depth of our interchanges. No matter what shenanigans we got into we found time for some chatting. Now that he works on the west coast for the other networking giant Facebook, I've all but completely lost touch.

However I digress...one night we discussed music, and I shared my current interest in one Bob Dylan. I was currently listening to his third Greatest Hits compilaton, almost solely for the inclusion of the song Hurricane. Everytime I heard the nearly nine minute song, I was reminded of the scene in Dazed and Confused were Wooderson, Pink, and Mitch walk through the Emporium, and this song backs their slow-motion stroll. Of all the great music in this film, this was my favorite, and yet it was not included on either of the two soundtracks released.

Some of my favorite parts of the song were the violin solos, and Ozzie had recently acquired an electric violin. He fooled around with it in a band (they couldn't decide on a name so they became known as TBA) that won our school talent show. They had huge sound issues and played only DMB cover songs. (Ozzie would go on to play in a band called Mojo Train at college). But that one night Ozzie plugged his violin into my CD player, and riffed along with "Hurricane." I think at that moment I decided that I really dug the violin in a non-classical music sense. So I was prepared to enjoy a bluegrass fiddle. So I was willing to admit I like the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"

...

Cut to college...In a whirlwind of events beginning my second semester freshman year, I had gone against my better judgement and joined a fraternity. Not just any frat mind you, but the bastion of Southern Gentlemen, the Kappa Alpha Order. (How I allowed myself to believe that Southern Gentlemen was the proper description for what were actually Good Ole Boys is still baffling to me).

Now these brothers of mine were mostly from Texas and Alabama, and therefore were raised with a healthy dose of country music. Every Friday we would have kegs at the landfill we called our frat house (lovingly termed the KA Mansion). The archaic sound system would blast a mixture of classic rock and country music. As a lowly pledge I had no input into the DJ choices, so I had little recourse but to withstand this barrage of country. Needless to say I lost this war of attrition, much like my friend from high school Birdsey had continually hammered me with his bootleg Phish concert tapes until I actually dug them.

My concessions for country music started small. After hearing Pat Green and Robert Earl Keen so many times, I could barely classify them as country so I began to allow that I enjoyed "Texas country" because the line between Texas country and rock wasn't well defined in my mind. Cory Morrow,

And slowly the other songs that I heard every Friday stopped grating against my eardrums. And late one night when I heard myself belting out the words to "Callin' Baton Rouge" There was now no mistaking it. I knew all the words to a Garth Brooks song. Chris Gaines himself. All the words. Even several cups of keg beer deep. Needless to say...I was a little shocked.

As I came to terms with my light appreciation of country music, I started to explore more and more. This includes finding contemporary gems like Alison Krauss, and fully exploring the catalogs of legends like Johnny Cash. All thanks to Mr. "Friends in Low Places" Brooks.

I can now ridicule with a clean conscience all those lazy people who, when asked to list their favorite bands simply write "anything but country"

You're clearly missing the boat.