Country music tends to maligned and kind of sneered at by popular culture, but I’ve always had a soft spot for it. One reason is just that some of the writing in country music is so brilliant. There is such clarity to it. Other genres’ lyrics are so often this kind of vague poetry. If you can even make out what the words are, the meaning is opaque - completely open to interpretation. Not in country. Country songs have a story to tell. Or a central idea. And every element of the song serves that idea - as clearly as possible.
There’s a song by Loretta Lynn, that I think is the perfect country song. It’s called ‘Miss being Mrs’, and she wrote it many years ago after her husband died, but it came out in 2005 when she did an album with Jack White. There are so many things I love about it, starting with the title. Three short words capture the story so poignantly. There’s also a slight wordplay/pun to it - country songs are great at using a little wordplay to make a song stick. So just the title has me intrigued and a little moved. But Loretta still has 3 minutes of song, and she doesn’t waste a second. Every single line goes after the heart strings. She creates this vivid portrait of grief. I don’t need to interpret it in the slightest. She just lays it out and it smashes me - even though I’ve never experienced that in my life. What a gift.
Ambiguity is overrated. Just hit play on the below video and have Loretta go for your jugular.