All Country For Old Men

For the first half of my life, everything I knew about music I learned from the back seat of my dad’s car.

Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms), Bryan Adams (Cuts Like a Knife, Reckless), Tom Petty (Full Moon Fever, Wildflowers, Greatest Hits), John Mellencamp (then “Cougar”) (American Fool), John Fogerty (Centerfield), Billy Joel (Storm Front), Don Henley (The End of the Innocence), Bruce Springsteen (Everything), Rolling Stones (Everything)

Now I’m not what anyone would call a music expert (I have one album on my phone, and it’s the one Bono put there), but even I know: That’s one heck of a list. A who’s who of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.

And not only did it make for great car rides, it gave me unexpected street cred at school. I may not have had confidence in anything else I was doing, but at least I knew the music I was listening to was cool. At least I knew my dad was cool.

Fast forward to last month, when that same dad was driving us home from Greg’s birthday dinner, and Keith Urban’s “Somewhere in My Car” was poisoning the airwaves, when I had somewhat of a eureka moment,

“Wait, the last song he had on was terrible, too….And so were the ones before that….This isn’t just a bad stretch of music….This is what he listens to.”

Tonight I join Beagle Man in Portland, OR for a 1,300-mile stretch of LA/XC-4. And I find his music unbearable!

How did it come to this? How did we get from Tom Petty to Taylor Swift? Had Beagle Man spent too much time in Nashville? Did he have a Ted Cruz post-9/11 change of heart? Did he come upon a station called “The Highway” and think that’s what you’re supposed to listen to when you’re on the highway?

I spoke to acclaimed musicologist (ok fine, my girlfriend Alison), looking for some answers. And what she said may sound obvious to you, but was very surprising to me.

“What rock was back then is what country is now,” she said. “Your dad hasn’t changed, music has.”

Steve Leftridge, of PopMatters, concurs:

“What’s remarkable is that we’ve seen such a wholesale metamorphosis of contemporary country music into arena rock that has left only the slightest tokens of anything traditionally “country” in the music at all.”

So country is the new rock? I guess I should’ve known. Beagle Man likes driving, dogs, and driving with dogs, but one thing he doesn’t like is change. And so he isn’t seeking out change by listening to country, he’s seeking refuge from it. So while the lyrics might be about living on a farm instead of livin’ on a prayer, it’s still rock and roll to him.

Leftridge concludes, “Where these fans have found refuge, beyond their old Zeppelin albums, is in modern country radio. The closest thing out there to the music of their rock and roll good-old days.”

I’d rather hear the old Zeppelin albums. But hey, I’m just along for the ride.