Chris Don't Write Too Good

So it pretty much starts with Scott listening to the new radio station in town. The CD player at work's been out for about three months now, which pretty much limits our musical options to the college station, the Fox, and sweet, merciful silence. Now since we can't always get WUSC (and when we can, there's a chance they'll be playing shitty death metal), and the Fox plays host to the most wretched sounds that Hell itself can spew forth, sweet lady silence has gotten more and more attractive over the past few weeks.

Enter Scott and his newfound fascination with Country Legends 94.3. He talked about it almost every time I called him there for a while, and it finally occurred to us to give it a shot after lunch on Wednesday. And lo and behold, it's not bad, even with Reba McEntire every hour on the hour. So, being a novel new sound, we played it for three days straight.

Now, while we're in the midst of tumblin' outta bed and stumblin' to the kitchen, pourin' ourselves a cup of ambition, Tracy walks over and says to me "I never figured you for a country fan."

Oddly enough, this was the second conversation I'd had about my opinions on country and western in the span of a week, which is a personal record. The first was to last Friday's lesbians, and involved me jabbing a finger at one of 'em and going: "Fuck Nashville!"

So I told Tracy and the Lesbians the same thing: I like older country, but can't stand the stuff that's coming out now. What I mean by that is that I like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, and the guys that have that kind of sound. But Tracy took issue with my stance on the matter, and a friendly miniature argument ensued.

I think the problem was my broad generalization against new country as a whole. But considering that everybody speaks in generalizations all the time, I think he should've cut me a little slack. I mean, I may say that I like John Ostrander, but you don't see me running out and buying Bishop miniseries left and right. I did, however, buy a run of Ka-Zar for reasons even I don't quite understand. Anyway, back to the point.

Today, I saw something that pretty much vindicated my feelings on the current state of country music, just in case Toby Keith, Shania Twain, and Faith Hill weren't doing a good enough job of that on their own. The song's called God's Will, by Martina McBride, and brother, it's rough.

Before I go on, I'm just going to clarify something: I'm an asshole. I mean, I consider myself a pretty nice guy in general, but some of the things that come out of my mouth--and Phil and Shaka know exactly the stuff I'm talking about--have pretty much guaranteed me a spot in hell. That said, I don't think I lash out without cause. Some things just push me over the edge, and instead of turning green and smashing cars, I end up miming Tom Cruise eating a baby.

So the song. I managed to catch the video twice almost back-to-back flipping through the channels this afternoon, and man. It might be the most pandering thing I've ever seen. It's a song about this kid, Will, who has the good fortune to have a name that's easily turned into a pun. That pretty much puts this song on par with the Brian Bosworth/Lance Henriksen epic Stone Cold right from the title, and that's no place to be.

Will's mentally and physically disabled, hobbling through the video occasionally dressed as a bag of leaves, and now you see why I don't even bother making shit up anymore. Also, halfway through the song, we find out he's terminally ill for some reason, and he gives our protagonist/singer a crayon drawing in the most artificially heart-wrenching musical moment since that fucking Christmas Shoes song. And believe me, that's another one I could go on for hours about.

Now before you get all pissed off at me making fun of the retarded kid, allow me to stress one thing: The chorus of the song--the chorus, the part that's repeated several times--starts off "Will don't walk too good / Will don't talk too good." Now once you've written that down on a piece of paper and then sung it into a microphone, you've pretty much given up all rights to not be made fun of on the internet, because that pushes this gem over the line from godawful right into hilarious.

It's the worst kind of pandering, and it even goes so far as to involve poor grammar, so I can't help but hate it. And it tries to make you feel guilty if you see through their paper-thin wall of bullshit. Well, mister, you picked the wrong person to lay a guilt trip on. I've said things about Judd Winnick that'll peel the paint off a Chrysler at 20 yards.

So here we are eight hundred words later, and the one point I've managed to hammer out is this. That song? Didn't care for it.