Silly Little Country

Norm is on a Roll Today

At least he is pulling my strings!
He starts documenting how nice we people in Toronto are (though if you drill down you see that some of the stories suggest that people even not in Toronto can also be nice!). Still this is a kind place and the Star is not afraid to report about that.
And then he gets to Merle Haggard! Now I have a recent history there, making hay out of a business trip that most people were dismayed to discover was to be hosted in Tulsa - but Tulsa with a treat! Norm links to two separate Haggard renditions of "Misery and Gin" and they form a lovely contrast.
Of course this was a hit for Haggard at the time that young feminist scholars were ranting on about how men did not expose their emotions; likely true of the pallid men they knew and lusted after, earnestly trying to get Arts Faculty positions, but certainly not true of the men who listened to country music. The emotions of loser men were what most of it was about.
And Bill Anderson could not have said it better, through the voice of Ray Price (also in that Tulsa concert), "they paint a purty picture of a world that's gay and bright but it's just a mask for loneliness behind those city lights ... it's just a place for men to cry when things don't turn out right ... I just can't say 'I love you' to a street of city lights".

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:03 PM