Country music: it's a take it or leave it kind of thing with me. Most days, I leave it. The too perfectly placed twangs, the "I'm an American!" themed lyrics, the ridiculous dirt & dusty trails cowboy images - it all just irritates me (I'm talking to you, Toby Keith).
Don't get me wrong, though. Back in the early part of the 2000's, I was a sucker for some backwoods country croonin'. Kenny Chesney's No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems played more or less on repeat in my Saturn for the entire summer of 2003, and I've seen him in concert no less than three times. But somewhere between then and now, country fell out of my Highly Esteemed Musical Tastes, much like rap and hip-hop did once everyone dropped social issues and took up rhyming about grills, Escalades, and poppin' Cristal.
I suppose that country music feels to me, sometimes, as if it's only purpose is to pull on our heartstrings, and so I avoid it, mostly. Ever see one of those sad SPCA pet adoption commercials? The ones where Sarah McLachlan uses her Canadian prowess to persuade the viewer to gaze into the sad eyes of abandoned pups and kittens and to ultimately donate to help said animals with their laundry lists of misfortunes? Well, listening to a country song is kind of like watching one of those commercials. You want to look away, to stop listening, but the suspense of not knowing if Jonny will have another fateful encounter with Abby Sue is killing you, so you turn the volume up and wait for the climatic final verse hoping that not only do Jonny and Abby Sue meet up again, but that they fall in love and have tiny magical babies with sparking ocean blue eyes and ten perfect toes.
Garsh. I digress again. (see what this music can do to you?) Guess I best be gettin' to the point of this here post.
Ultimately, I do make my way over to the country radio stations sometimes, and there is some good to be had there. Lately, I've been digging Lady Antebellum, a country-pop crossover three piece that can hardly be called country, but whatever. Lead vocals alternate between Charles Kelley (brother of the awesomely talented acoustic singer-songwriter Josh Kelley) and Hillary Scott (sister of someone, probably).
This week's song, while not one I'd recommend for a run or workout necessarily, is chock full of that heartstring pulling bit I alluded to earlier, but even we cynics needs a hearty dose of that sometimes. "Hello World" offers a quiet lead-in from Kelley before it hits a lovely crescendo and is heavily cloaked in contemplation; it begs the listener to ponder the "little things" in life. Cheesy? Perhaps. But don't you just want to stick around for the end to see if the little girl lives or dies? You know you do.
Watch the tear-inducing video:
And read some lyrics, too:
"Traffic crawls, cell phone calls
Talk radio screams at me through my tinted window I see
A little girl, rust red minivan, she’s got chocolate on her face
Got little hands and she waves at me
Yeah, she smiles at me
Well, hello world
How you been
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel cold as steel
Broken like I’m never gonna heal
And I see a light, a little hope in a little girl
Hello world"