Bleeding From the Ears

OK, not literally bleeding from the ears, but it's starting to feel that way.

I think I've mentioned before that the guys in the shop like to listen to the local country music station. Up until a few months ago we used to alternate between that and the "rock that won't embarrass you at work" station, but eventually I think Rich just got sick of hearing Kenny bitch about the radio and now it's all Brad Paisley, all the time.

Although honestly I think an all Brad Paisley station would be better than what we actually get -- at least then I'd hear "Ticks" occasionally. This station has an unbelievably narrow playlist -- I gather from my research that this isn't a country-only phenomenon; what used to be Top 40 back in the day is now more like Top 20. The problem is, when a station only plays a few dozen songs you end up at the mercy of the quality of those songs. Sometimes that's good, but at the moment, when it comes to country music, that SUCKS.

Let me say right off the bat that, in general, I don't like country music. At least, I tend to dislike the kind of country that ends up on the radio; I'm a big fan of alt-country, insurgent country, bluegrass, the Bakersfield sound, and some neotraditional country, none of which gets played these days. But, at the same time I'm a sucker for a good pop song and, no matter how many twangy guitars you pile on top of the current strain of country, that's what a lot of it is. I'm reminded of that every time I hear one of the "throwback" songs they often play: "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy," or "Friends in Low Places" (but not all of them -- I still get angry every time I hear "Have You Forgotten," but probably not for the reason Darryl Worley intended).

So I'm not a country fan, but I am a pop fan. Plus, my relationship with music is such that, after I hear a song a number of times, I'm more disposed to find something good about it. Maybe this is a defense mechanism, or maybe it's just normal behavior; either way the other day I found myself welling up over the emotion in the dad-daughter tearjerker "I Loved Her First," though in my defense I was having a really bad day. But what it means is that usually, when objectionable music is playing in the background, I can sort of tune it out and it doesn't insinuate itself into my brain too much.

But apparently I've been dealing with second-hand country music for too long; last night I was awakened in the middle of the night by the song "Livin' Our Love Song" playing in my head. Have you ever had the song in your head wake you up? It's a bummer. It would be a bummer even if it was "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A." that did it; to have it be this obnoxious Jason Michael Carroll song is pure agony. I have my music collection on my computer and I almost always have something playing (despite what that broken last.fm widget says), but I have to mute it when the phone rings, someone comes into my office, etc., and I often forget to put it back on. No more.

My New Year's resolution is to never have to hear any of these songs again, and I'll write the titles here as a way to (hopefully) purge them from my brain forever. So long to the schmaltz of "Watching Airplanes" and "Stay"; bye bye to the neo-Nashville "How 'Bout Them Cowgirls," "More Than a Memory," and "Time Marches On"; see ya to the unclever topicality of "So Much Cooler Online"; adios to the kneejerk conservatism of "I Miss Mayberry" and "What Do You Think About That." And especially, good riddance to my current least favorite song of all time Kenny Chesney's ode to the wisdom of really old people, "Don't Blink." I will miss the honky-tonk goodness of Josh Tuner's "Firecracker," but every war has its collateral damage.

OK, that's all for now. I'm off to play The Jesus Lizard for the fifth time today to try to get my cranium fully scrubbed out.