From Where I Sit: The truth about country music

Confession time. I have to come out of the closet. You see, for about the past decade I have been known to make fun of country music every chance I had. I knew all the anti-country jokes, the redneck jokes, and the country hick jokes by heart. My favorite one was that if you played country music backwards you would get your wife back, home back, dog back, truck back, girlfriend back, and job back. However, about three weeks ago, on the way to and from Los Angeles in my friend’s car, I had an attitude adjustment. My friend, who is a good 30 pounds heavier than I, stated that unless I wanted to walk down I-5 and meet him in the L.A. Basin, we would be listening to country for the duration of the trip. I had hoped that being in the middle of nowhere — you know, most of what’s between Sacramento and Los Angeles — I wouldn’t be plagued by any stray radio signal carrying such music. But as luck would have it, the one and only station available was a country music. Upon arriving back in Sacramento a few days later, I found my radio dial visiting various country stations increasingly often, until one of them ended up being programmed into my stereo’s memory pre-sets. Now, I know all of the top songs, current artists, and actually sing along with some of the songs (even Shania Twain, if no one’s around to hear me).

I like how country music relaxes me, cheers me up, brings back memories of my Midwest roots, and is easy stuff to listen to. I’ve encountered no profanity or words about things I’d be better off not having in my head. The songs are about decent topics like love, faithfulness, friendships, relationships, hard work, and good values of life. There are things in the verses worth thinking about. I like that.

It makes me wonder what each of our likes, dislikes, habits, and tastes say about each of us as individuals. People judge us by what they see. Do we know what they see? Do we care? It is wise to remember that other folks draw conclusions about us and form opinions based on what we show them in our lives. When they make unfair generalizations, or stereotypes, that can be a hurtful experience, but also possible is the chance of them receiving a good impression of us and holding us in high esteem. Since the determining factors in the inevitable image-making process can be major, subtle, or almost unnoticeable, it is best to always remind ourselves of who we are and who we want to be in the eyes of others.

Whether we like to admit it or not, very few mature people sincerely do not care about the impressions they make on others. When we wake up each morning, we face the ongoing choice of how we want the world to see us, and our image is ours to construct as we wish.