just Peachy thoughts

wholesome.

Confession: I adore country music. I really do. I always have, actually, except for a period of time in middle and high school where I pretended to love rap (Jay-Z what?).

This morning I was driving to work with Taylor Swift blasting and me singing along (loudly and off-key), when I started thinkin’. I love country music for the story-telling and the down-home, backwoods, small town, way-it-used-to-be, wholesome-ness of it. Except I’m not certain that it’s really all that wholesome. And the more I thought about it, that cozy feeling I typically get while enjoying this genre started turning a little sour. Is it wholesome…or just ignorant? Hmm, let’s consider:

Song about man who enjoys his young family? Wholesome.

Song about girl who vandalizes ex-boyfriend’s car? Ignorant (and a little funny).

Song about man or woman getting wasted out of loneliness? Ignorant (and not so funny).

Now, please understand. If there was ever something I am passionately opposed to, it is ignorance. (Note: By “ignorance”, I’m not referring to those who just haven’t had a “formal education”. I’m referring to those who have had a million opportunities in life to be educated and yet choose to remain uneducated, in thought, in action, in deed, etc.) And unfortunately, it is rampant in our society. Some people might generalize this characteristic to Southerners, but no no! Make no mistake, ignorance is a disease that knows no bounds. I can sniff it out a mile away, so you can imagine my surprise (at myself) when I realized its little stench was sneaking through my radio. I just can’t allow that.

Now this is to say, I will not stop listening to country music. I will however, listen with a more astute ear in the future; I will recognize lyrics that romanticize ignorance and mediocrity.

And I will change the station.

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