Friday would be a good day for a list of drinking songs, but I don't want to be responsible for any of your debauchery, so instead I'll do a cautionary playlist about people struggling with addiction. I tried to avoid songs that treat the subject too lightly ("Stay Away from the Cocaine Train") or too obliquely ("The Bottle Let Me Down") in favor of songs that look specifically at the psychology of addiction and its destructive impact on addicts and their loved ones. As always, you're welcome … [Read more...]

I don't like to give too much weekend homework, so I think another obscure playlist is in order. Enjoy your break!Austin - Blake SheltonIs That a Tear - Tracy LawrenceMama Don't Forget to Pray For Me - Diamond RioAs Soon As I Hang Up the Phone - Conway Twitty & Loretta LynnI Can Still Make Cheyenne - George StraitThe Number - Vern GosdinIf a Man Answers - Toby KeithCallin' Baton Rouge - Garth BrooksCallin' Caroline - Darryl WorleyCoca Cola Cowboy - Mel TillisIf You Had Called Yesterday - … [Read more...]

Footlights - Merle Haggard (from Serving 190 Proof)A road-weary entertainer realizes – with a mixture of discontent and resignation – that living show-to-show, putting on a smile and trying to “kick the footlights out” again each night, is the only way he knows how to live.A Showman's Life - Gary Allan and Willie Nelson (from See If I Care)Similar in tone and subject matter, this song chronicles the heartbreak and emptiness of a life lived in the spotlight. “A phony smile and a … [Read more...]

Country music isn't so much obsessed with cheating as it is obsessed with the question of fidelity. What's the difference? Well, many so-called "cheating" songs aren't really about the action of cheating as much as they are about the decision to cheat or to remain faithful. In other words, they're about the serious moral and ethical choices upon which relationships are built, and by which they are sometimes broken.That having been said, here are a few songs in which the moment of truth comes … [Read more...]

Future Mister Me - Randy Travis (from Full Circle)Who's That Man - Toby Keith (from Boomtown)Do You Want Fries With That - Tim McGraw (from Live Like You Were Dying)I Meant Every Word He Said - Ricky Van Shelton (from RVS III)Why Didn't I Think Of That? - Doug Stone (from Greatest Hits)Just Married - Marty Robbins (from 16 Biggest Hits)The Ghost of Another Man - George Jones (from I Am What I Am)My Son Calls Another Man Daddy - Hank Williams (from Original Singles Collection)He's Got You - … [Read more...]

When songwriters find a formula that works, they use it. This formula clearly works. Many of the following songs were #1s on the Billboard country chart. They all use the youth→marriage→parenthood cycle as a major structural feature of the narrative. Some do it better than others, but the radical in me wonders: why do it at all?There Goes My Life – Kenny Chesney (#1 in 2003) Hell I'm just a kid myself / How am I gonna raise one? Nothing like an unplanned pregnancy to speed up the … [Read more...]