Tue, June 17, 2003

It all started so innocently.

I received a call from Mom to let me know about something I should watch on TV. Always looking for new ideas ("I was just going to sit around and watch TV... but maybe there's something I should watch on TV!"), I entertained her proposal. The item of interest was Country Music Television's (CMT) 100 Greatest Country Songs. Personally, I listen to very little country music (by which I mean "radio country," the twangy Alan Jackson stuff that country music fans like and CMT is built on) and I stopped paying attention to those millennial "100 Greatest" lists around the time that there were enough to warrant a 100 Greatest "100 Greatest" Lists List. However, her enthusiasm can be– if not contagious, at least really really adorable. So, with a rerun-season inspired glut of free disk space on TiVo, I arranged the recording of the 2-hour recap/concert featuring live performances of the top twelve. And off I went to see The Italian Job.

Four days or so later, when I was bored, I decided to check out the broadcast. (God bless TiVo. I mean, really.) (No, seriously, really.) What a crock! See, they recapped the first 88 songs and then counted down the rest, so even though I only got the cool Behind The Music-style backgrounders on twelve songs, I got to see the entire list. At first, the fact that old-fashioned Buck Owens material made the list made me think it was going to be all right. Good, I thought, they're not just focusing on the 100 Greatest Brooks & Dunn and Reba McEntire Hits of the 1990s and Today. A sense of history and perspective. Well played.

However, as we got closer and closer to the top twenty, I got worried. Sure, there were some great Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson tunes, a Dolly Parton or two and some fabulous Johnny Cash. But where were the Gram Parsons songs? Emmylou Harris? Lyle Lovett?? Absent, entirely. I would almost accept the argument that Emmylou and Lyle are too genre-crossing to qualify as "purely country," in my book a laudable accomplishment by these fine artists. But there was an Eagles song on the list! If "Desperado" qualifies as country then I'll be damned if "Pancho & Lefty" and "That's Right (You're Not From Texas)" don't! Besides, Gram was country through and through. No denying that. No, the only explanation for the categorical shut-out of the only three country music singers I listen to with pride is pure ignorance. The CMT staffers who made up the list clearly subscribe to the same school of musical aesthetic as the radio programmers who boycotted the Dixie Chicks after one of them said something mean about Dubya. (See link.) The country-music types with so many adhesive Nascar numbers plastered across the rear window of their pickup cab they appear to spell out their favorite phone sex hotline. The slobbering yahoos who crank up the Clint Black and actually play Garth Brooks at their weddings (to their cousins).

What a shame. And the winning song (sorry to spoil it) was Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man." I can appreciate that. It's a seminal song and very well written. But they brought Martina McBride in to sing it! She's cute, she's good, but she's the wrong choice. Lyle Lovett is the right choice. His performance of "Stand By Your Man" (it was used in the film The Crying Game) is second only to Hillary Clinton in popularizing the song enough to even qualify it for consideration in the top 25. His rendition is so much smoother than Wynette's or anyone else's. Maybe you can ignore Lyle Lovett's contribution to country music in the voting portion, but you should still be able to recognize his talents and his magnificent transformation of a twangy, entertaining tune into a soulful work of art.

Country music people: Why?

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