A 2004 article in the Policy Studies Journal by Texas A&M professor Kenneth Meier argued that country music resolves policy debates well before the intellectual or political community addresses them.
“Get Your Tongue out of My Mouth ‘Cause I’m Kissin’ You Goodbye: The Politics of Ideas,” (Vol. 32, No. 2) outlines how country music lyrics influence a broad range of policy, from criminal justice, to the environment, to government efficiency and family values.
This may be news to some readers. And some of Meier’s fellow political science professors disagree with his thesis. One claims Broadway musicals deserve the status accorded to country music by Meier, and another says TV is the genesis of political thought. Regardless, Meier makes some insightful points.
He notes that country music was one of the first to recognize the importance of environment in shaping adulthood.
He writes, “The impact of dysfunctional families on crime was reinforced by Hank Williams Jr. (1979):
Hank, Why do you drink? Why do you roll smoke?
Why must you live out the songs that you wrote?
… If I get stoned and sing all night long,
It’s a family tradition.
On education policy, he says, “Education as the means to compete in world markets is recognized by Billy Joe Shaver’s song about trade relations with Japan”:
I got a good Christian raisin’,
and an eighth grade education,
ain’t no need yawl to treat me this a way. (1993)
But Meier does not address how country music speaks to the health care debate. Is country music silent on this issue? If not, what can elected officials glean from its store of wisdom as they debate competing bills in Congress?
Professor Meier did not respond to a request to share his views on the topic. But I think country music has many kernels of wisdom to offer. Here are a few:
On wellness and prevention
Singer Trace Adkins shows that a little encouragement can help others to reduce alcohol consumption and to exercise.
He swoons how the owner of a certain “bondonkadonk” has the power to stop him from drinking and her “Keepin’ perfect rhythm/ Make ya wanna swing along” — i.e., get out on the dance floor. Most doctors say dancing is a great way to work exercise into a daily routine. And former House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, now of “Dancing With the Stars” fame, is a prime example of how cha-chaing helps to shed pounds.
Perhaps foreshadowing the song’s influence on public policy, he adds, “There outta be a law.”
And Brad Paisley sings eloquently about Lyme disease prevention in his hit “Ticks”:
I’d like to kiss you way back in the sticks
I’d like to walk you through a field of wildflowers
And I’d like to check you for ticks.
On death panels
Johnny Cash shows us that it is not government that will take us home, but God.
In “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” on “American V: A Hundred Highways,” he sings:
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down
Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down
As a side note, the song also presciently sheds light on government secrecy in bailing out the banks, car makers and American International Group, which received $170 billion from taxpayers with little explanation about where or how the money was spent.
As Cash says,
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s down in the dark will be brought to the light
Readers may notice a leitmotif of these songs is that many things are out of our control — and those that are don’t require government intervention to fix.
While country music singers may not be health care experts, the best have an exceptional understanding of human nature, something a public option, rationed care and other so-called policy fixes to our health system ignore on their quest to remake not just health care but American life.
Examiner Columnist Marta Mossburg is a senior fellow with the Maryland Public Policy Institute and lives in Baltimore.
