{"id":142,"date":"2015-01-30T13:14:41","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/?p=142"},"modified":"2015-01-30T13:14:41","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T18:14:41","slug":"songs-that-got-me-here-country-death-song-violent-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Songs That Got Me Here: &#8220;Country Death Song&#8221; &#8211; Violent Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/violent-femmes-650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-143\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/violent-femmes-650.jpg\" alt=\"violent femmes 650\" width=\"650\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/violent-femmes-650.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/violent-femmes-650-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why do you love Country music?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I get that a lot.\u00a0 Family has asked me, friends have asked me.\u00a0 Fans of the show I meet, when they find out I&#8217;m a Yankee from New York in my 30&#8217;s will ask me.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a fair question.\u00a0 Usually, I just answer that I love the juxtaposition of simple chords and deep, earnest lyrics.\u00a0 Or, that the universal subject matter of love, loss, tragedy and joy is expressed so beautifully in classic Country songs, that it makes my hair stand on end.\u00a0 Or, that I&#8217;m just a sucker for a steel guitar.\u00a0 But, it has got me thinking about when these musical seeds were planted.\u00a0 From when I started identifying music that I liked, or even further back when I just listened to what my parents played, what songs began to tilt my ear toward this obsession?\u00a0 I touched on this a bit with this <a title=\"bothkindsradio.com\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/?p=52\" target=\"_blank\">post on Johnny Cash&#8217;s birthday<\/a>, but it&#8217;s an area that I&#8217;d like to explore further.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Violent Femmes - Country Death Song\" width=\"510\" height=\"383\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FWZf_RBcB_Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The summer before Middle School (I think I was 12), my friend from the neighborhood brought Violent Femmes self titled album up to Boy Scout camp.\u00a0 I think we listened to it enough that week that the magnetic strip wore through on the cassette.\u00a0 It&#8217;s still a great record, <a title=\"Violent Femmes\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QeJODSjIbT8\" target=\"_blank\">check it out<\/a>.\u00a0 This led me to seek out their other records, which led me to &#8220;Hallowed Ground&#8221;, their second record.\u00a0 Track one is &#8220;Country Death Song&#8221;.\u00a0 I was immediately struck but the simple, almost goofy jugband bassline paired with the dark, dark lyrics.\u00a0 The music builds with rolling banjos, guitars and drums swirling louder and softer, as the story progresses.\u00a0 Gordon Gano weaves the disturbing (<a title=\"Wiki\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hallowed_Ground_%28Violent_Femmes_album%29\" target=\"_blank\">and apparently true<\/a>) story of a man&#8217;s insanity driving him to do the unspeakable.\u00a0 It&#8217;s very affecting and I instantly loved the voyeuristic lyrical thrill of being witness to evil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Country Death Song&#8221; stayed with me through the years, finding it&#8217;s way onto mixtapes and DJ playlists, so that when I heard songs like <a title=\"Folsom Prison Blues\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bDktBZzQIiU\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Folsom Prison Blues&#8221;<\/a> or <a title=\"Knoxville Girl\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KhMiKeSffns\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Knoxville Girl&#8221;<\/a> I felt an immediate attraction.\u00a0 The subject matter of crime or death or evil, when not presented in a genre that is built around those topics alone (gangster rap or death metal), really titillates almost like watching like a slasher movie or reading a true-crime novel.\u00a0 A great tune, and one of the many that laid the tracks for the slow train&#8217;s journey to the bountiful lands of Country Music.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Why do you love Country music?&#8221; &nbsp; I get that a lot.\u00a0 Family has asked me, friends have asked me.\u00a0 Fans of the show I meet, when they find out I&#8217;m a Yankee from New York in my 30&#8217;s will ask me.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a fair question.\u00a0 Usually, I just answer that I love the juxtaposition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothkindsradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}