A lot of hardcore, traditional country music fans will tell you that today’s country music isn’t country at all; it is more like a patriotic version of pop music.  However, you’ve got to put this country music criticism in context: over the years, there has always been a debate on how to define country music.  What some people consider country, others would consider a completely different genre.  The only way to define country music is to get an understanding of its roots.

When country music first sprang up, it was a way of venting out the hard knocks of life.  Musicians grabbed instruments – often whatever they had nearby, such as the washboard – and sang about their lives working in the coal mines, their wives who left them, death in the family, working the fields, being a jailbird, and drinking hard liquor to drown out the sorrows, amongst many other gritty themes.  It isn’t surprising that the male country singers looked and acted tough.  The female country singers also looked tough and had voices that alluded to experience.

By comparison, the country singers of today couldn’t get any more different.  The male country singers are seen in perfectly-pressed “cowboy” designer shirts and wearing gel in their hair.  The women are dolled up in ways that would put shame to the gospel roots of country.  It seems like all of the big country singer wonders are barely out of their teens, leaving you to wonder just how many hard knocks they have really experienced.   In a nutshell, today’s country music has turned into a teeny-bopping pop show.

Yes, music changes over time and we shouldn’t hold that against it.  As far as country music goes, we should take the reality of the situation to heart.  First off, there aren’t that many people living in the country as before. Farms are big-business operations and the people who work them often go to homes in the suburbs.  People living in the country shop at Wal-Mart and don’t work in coal mines. If any modern-day country singer were to start crooning about the hard-knocks of life, we would probably start handing out the criticism even faster than we criticize about losing “real” country.

So yes, country music lyrics have changed to the point of being pop.  But we should take this as a sign of the larger picture.  Lives hard knocks are not the same and you can’t criticize country musicians for singing about what they know.

If you want to keep your kids from listening to explicit song lyrics, then you have your work cut out for you!  Even though there are many ways to block explicit material from reaching your kids, there are a lot of places where your kids can access the material.  It would take hundreds of personalized settings before you effectively block explicit songs.  The reality is that some explicit content would still slip through so you would need to forbid internet completely to protect your kids.  You would also probably need to forbid friendships too because your kid’s friends likely are listening to some explicit songs.

While you may not be able to block all explicit content from seeping through the net to your kids, you can at least put blocks in place at the most likely leaks.

iTunes

If your kids have an iPod or iPhone, then they can download songs from the iTunes library. Luckily, iTunes has made it pretty easy to block offensive songs from reaching your kids and the system if very effective.

Just log into your iTunes account and click on the Edit tab.  Then click on Preferences. Select the Parental tab. Select the checkbox for “Restrict explicit content.” Then, make sure you lock these settings so your kids can’t change them. Click “OK”

YouTube

YouTube is one of the most popular places for people to watch music videos online.  To block the explicit videos from appearing on YouTube search results, just use turn on the Safety Mode. It is located at the bottom of every YouTube page.  Just click the Safety Mode button and it will open a preference screen.  You select “On” and it will filter out explicit videos.

Facebook

Even though Facebook isn’t specifically for listening to music, a lot of Facebook users share music on their walls.  If your kids use Facebook, then they may be exposed to explicit content.  Unfortunately, Facebook still doesn’t have any parental controls for blocking this content.  As a parent, your first option is to block Facebook completely (can be done through your web browser or on your computer). If you don’t want to block Facebook completely, then you can monitor your kids’ walls and their friends’ walls.  Make it clear that you don’t want them listening to explicit song lyrics.  If any of their friends post explicit songs, then you will block those friends. 

MTV

MTV is known for promoting some very sexual, violent, and other explicit music videos.  Keep in mind though that MTV isn’t the only culprit on television.  If you have cable, then you probably have at least a few other channels where explicit songs are being broadcast.  These are easy to block.  Your TV may have a built-in parental control which lets you block certain channels.  Or, you can buy a special remote control which will block channels.  You will need to make a code for when you want to unblock those channels.

‘Looking for Freedom’ – David Hasselhoff (1989)

This song was covered by David Hasselhoff and topped the charts in 1989 as the Berlin Wall was crumbling to the ground.  Hasselhoff performed “Looking for Freedom” on New Year’s Eve of that year on top of the partly demolished wall.

‘God Save the Queen’ – Sex Pistols (1977)

The Sex Pistols did more than just spawn a music scene when they came out with “God Save the Queen.”  By singing this punk rock anthem, the Sex Pistols challenged the view of the English as conservative royalists.  The political statement of the song couldn’t have been clearer when the Sex Pistols performed it on a boat ride down the Thames, cruising by the Houses of Parliament at the same time as the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebration.

‘Imagine’ – John Lennon (1971)

The Beatles made an undeniable influence on the world by revolutionizing music.  But “Imagine” deserves its own specific recognition for the influence it had on the world.  It was the first n internationally-resonant song which expressed the need for peace.

‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ – Sam Cooke (1964)

Sam Cooke never got to see the influence his song had because it wasn’t released until after he died.  The song’s first influence was in furthering the American Civil Rights Movement.  Recently, the song has extended its influence to black Americans when it was used as a theme for the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, helping him become the first African American president in the United States.

‘Fight the Power’ – Public Enemy (1989)

Fight the Power became an anthem for the disenfranchised black community.  It came out at a time where African Americans were brewing with anger and the LA riots of 1991 were in the near future.  Fight the Power also had influence in Serbia when it was played on radio stations like B92 which were prohibited from broadcasting news.

“We Shall Overcome” – Charles Albert Tindley

“We Shall Overcome” is one of the most influential songs of all time and has had a huge impact on history. It was first written as a gospel song in the early 20^th century.  The song poured out of churches and into the streets as a protest song, unifying the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. It was later adopted by other movements, like Vietnam War protesters, farmworker strikers, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, Czechoslovakians during the Velvet Revolution, and more.

I never thought much about American traditional song lyrics until I headed over to Eastern Europe to practice my emerging polyglot-ness. I wanted to get a full immersion into the cultures so I spent time listening and translating traditional songs.  Now, “traditional” songs of Europe are much older than the ones of America.  This is no surprise considering that the Americas didn’t even get discovered until the 15^th century.  It took a LOT longer before the Americas were populated.  Take California for example: in 1850, there were only 92,597 residents in the entire state!  By 1880, the boom of the cowboy era, the population had jumped but was still only 864,694 (compare to the 2000 population of 33.8 million!).

Interestingly though, the age of the “traditional” songs didn’t seem to have much effect on the topic.  All throughout the long period of traditional songs in Europe, there is one dominating theme: love.  Yes, nearly all song lyrics of European traditional songs deal with love.  Take one of my favorites as an example: “Tonight My Heart is Suffering” (Nocas mi scre pati) by Silvana Armenulic. One of the stanzas translates from Serbo-Croatian as

What do I need a life for if it is without you, my love?

When another love I don’t want to have

I dream of you

Almost every night

Only you are in my heart

Now compare these words to the song lyrics of my favorite country western, “Jingle Jangle Jingle”

Yippie yay
There’ll be not wedding bells for today

‘Cause I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle
As I go ridin’ merrily along
And they sing, “Oh, ain’t you glad you’re single”
And that song ain’t so very far from wrong

This is just one example of American traditional music but they all tend to have the same themes.  Instead of talking about going to the one they love, the Americans sing about choosing freedom and the open range over love.  This is no surprise considering that the Americans of the time were very nomadic or adventurous. Many of them were fresh off the boat from Europe.  Of course, these European immigrants didn’t all give up their love songs.  But those love songs took on a very different form – singing about love and nostalgia of a country left behind!

It is important to realize that “parody” in its literal definition does not always mean a comedy. A song parody only needs to reinvent lyrics or aspects of a song.  The resulting parody can be serious or comedic.  The Bob Dylan song “Blowing in the Wind” is a good example of a very serious song parody.  Its melody was taken from the slave folk song called “No more auction block for me”.

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, parody music lyrics were mostly found in the theatre.  The performers would incorporate popular songs into their shows but change the lyrics to be humorous.  Many of these theatre performances could be considered cabaret by modern standards, though the conventions of the time upheld the theatre in a different manner.

It wasn’t until the true birth of pop music that we really see parody music taking hold.  In the 1950s, record production increased drastically and more people were listening to the same songs.  Stan Freberg is one of the fathers of modern parody music.  He began his career in parody music in 1951 and, over the years, made parody songs like “Dragnet”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”  One of his most notable song parodies is of Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel.”

Parody songs had a huge revival with Weird Al’ Yankovic in the 1990s.  Some of his biggest hits were songs like “Amish Paradise” (parody of “Gansta’s Paradise by Coolio), “Bedrock Anthem” (parody of “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers), and “Eat It” (parody of “Beat It” by Michael Jackson). Since Weird Al’ Yankovic launched the parody music revival, other notable parodists have included the Altar Boyz, Capitol Steps, The Midnight Beast, and Rucka Rucka Ali.