Wednesday, July 15, 2009

One of the best songs from the '90s...

...from one of the greatest country singers of all time, at Prime Country, Sirius Ch. 61: "He's gone country, a new kind of walk...."
A No. 1 hit for Alan Jackson the week of Jan. 28, 1995, "Gone Country" was yet another classic from the pen of Beaumont native and Lamar University graduate Bob McDill. A lot of people -- including Jackson himself -- saw the song as a celebration of country music's renewed popularity in the wake of Garth Brooks and the like, but I read later that McDill was making fun of certain opportunistic mindsets when he wrote it. Which makes sense when you consider what the song says...
"He says, I don't believe in money, but a man could make him a killin', cause some-a that stuff don't sound much different than Dylan,
"'I hear down there, it's changed, you see, well, they're not as backward, as they used to be,' he's gone country..."
As long as McDill had been a Nashville hitmaker by that time (at least since the early '70s, going by this list) I find it a bit difficult to believe he'd really think people were backward during that time, but then maybe that's just my biases talking.