What was I thinking when I bought that music?

We all have clothes in our closets that we ask ourselves, What was I thinking when I bought that?

Since all I wear are jeans, basic button shirts, and boots I don't have that problem. But I have music I feel the same way about. What was going through my head when I bought that No Doubt CD? This morning I put on Sugarland. The first cut is Something More. Just country pop, like so much of it nowadays (Faith Hill, Martina McBride), nice catchy lyrics, music you can dance to, easy to sing along to, inspirational, and so, so boring. Written for chicks who complain about how awful their lives are here in the U.S. where we don't have roadside bombs going off everyday, and that's about it.

Monday, hard to wake up
Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door
Yeah, the freeway standing still today
It's gonna make me late, and that's for sure
I'm running out of gas and out of time
Never gonna make it there by 9

[Chorus:]
There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

So much of popular country is written for women. Or let's put it this way, the hits are manufactured for women. Some bean counter somewhere in Nashville or Austin figured this out. And all they do is pick the sore, but they don't tell you how to heal it. They don't take you anywhere. You just wallow.

Like so much popular culture, with country music we identify. It justifies our existence, but it doesn't take us anywhere else. It doesn't teach us; we don't grow.

Give me some good, old-fashioned hillbilly music any day.