Thursday, July 02, 2026

A Departure, Pre-Independence Day

There's a local mercantile in my little town that I frequent nearly daily. Not because I'm addicted to shopping, but because they have dog treats behind the counter, and my hound knows this. So she and I usually go into Brick and Mortar on our midday walk.

The store stocks a range of products from  fairly high-end casual clothing (think Filson, Howler, Pendleton, etc) and shoes (Blundstone, Birkenstock) to amusing bric a brac, booze accessories, books (they stock JoJo's book, for example), and locally-themed odds and ends. 

On our most recent trip, I saw this t-shirt:


For the uninitiated, that's a reference to Joe Diffie's 1993 hit, "John Deere Green", about a young man who painted the town's water tower with the words Billy Bob Loves Charlene in bright green. It's a prime example of the country story genre, and I love it unironically. 


Naturally, thinking about that song sparked memories of several more, some similar in their storytelling, others in their tonality. So on this Independence Day Eve Eve, a brief tour of my brain, country and western version.


10 comments:

  1. Love "Seminole Wind"... takes me back. C&W numbers from the resurgent era of the late 80's / early 90's that I still enjoy also include:

    - "Ain't That Lonely Yet," Dwight Yoakam
    - "Deeper Than the Holler," Randy Travis
    - "All My Ex's Live in Texas," George Strait
    - "Chattahoochee," Alan Jackson
    - "Brand New Man," Brooks & Dunn
    - "Passionate Kisses," Lucinda Williams (the Mary Chapin Carpenter version ain't bad, either)

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  2. that’s a strong sixer, as well

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  3. I heard Seminole Wind on a perusal of the radio dial the other day. Followed immediately by some absolute dreck. Country ain't what it used to be.

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  4. this is my least favorite musical genre, and that tim mcgraw song is now my least favorite song in my least favorite genre . . . don't give away grandpa's watch! he kept that up his ass for five years! with dysentery!

    worth far more than the girl . . .

    but who am i to judge? to each his own, even if it sucks

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  5. I’ve never heard Dave even go that far towards respecting others’ opinions. We really are growing up.

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  6. dave’s kinda opinionated, huh?

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  7. I am opinionated too, and it is my strident belief that there is an era/style of country music for everyone.

    That said, I'm not sure what I'd turn to if I were trying to convert Dave.

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  8. that's a challenge, but i agree. i was raised on outlaw country for the most part. dad loved waylon and willie and the boys. listened to a lot of alabama, oak ridge boys, merle, georges jones and strait. don't much care for the modern version of the genre. we might have to go all the way back to hank senior to find a home for dave.

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  9. Modern country is outside my comfort zone too, although I love Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. During the summer of 1995, Juan Moritz and I were up late watching TV at Braxton Court and a commercial for some old school country music CD collection came on. Juan was sold as soon as they played a snippet of El Paso--he got on the phone and ordered it immediately. I believe we were overserved and he was thus inordinately susceptible to marketing manipulations, but he played those CDs in his regular rotation for at least a year.

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