truck songs of the week #33: the joys of competency porn

Friday lights, flannel new shirts & mama's new boyfriend

This week we’re looking closely at the comforting sense of competence that powers so much of country music.

John Rogers, creator of the TV show Leverage, coined the term “competency porn” to describe a particular kind of storytelling. From Reactor:

This applies just as well to the narratives of country music. They are steeped in the culture of self-sufficiency, which inevitably means deep capability. Adulthood is challenging and confusing, which makes the signifiers of competence comforting.

Eleanor of Rabbit Fur Coat wrote about this beautifully in an essay on the trendiness of workwear — Carhartt, Ariat, etc. — even among those who aren’t doing physical labor:

My most generous explanation is that we reach for these type of garments because we are longing for stability. Workwear is a sartorial symbol of “simpler” times, a reminder of a time when economic upward mobility was more common, when a blue-collar job could provide an ample salary for an entire family.

The appeal of competent country music is similar. It’s the reassuring sense that someone out there knows how to be an adult — a collective fantasy about a boyfriend who can change your flat tire instead of calling AAA.

Drive safe.

Get the full 2024 playlist here.

---

“Overdrive” by Thomas Rhett

Another electronica-infused track from Thomas Rhett, who gives us the evocative new verb “high-beaming” for driving down rural roads at night.

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube

“That’s Us” by Styles

Haury Styles¹ revels in the prepositional phrases of blue-collar life: up before the sun, out in the fields, holding it down. The song is almost obnoxiously sincere in its insistence that blue-collar work powers America², making good on country music’s populist undercurrents. Lyrics like this are where the objects of rural life are transformed into something more like manifesto.

Songs like this offer a compensatory pride for work that is often not monetarily well compensated. “Cool” is a way of measuring value outside the linear constraints of wealth, and music like this enshrines that relationship between physical labor and cool within the country subculture.

Spotify / Apple Music (not available) / YouTube

“Guy For That (feat. Luke Combs)” by Post Malone

The third single from Post Malone’s forthcoming and perfectly named pivot into country music, F 1-Trillion (out 8/16), this playful song riffs on country’s small-town competency. Post Malone knows “a guy” who can handle anything from re-binding Bibles to re-soling Red Wing work boots — except for repairing a broken heart. Listen for the clever little turn when the classic “ever lovin’ mind” becomes a “never lovin’ mind.”

Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube

---

• Post Malone’s path to country: He made the genre jump look effortless and has been readily embraced by the notoriously aloof gatekeepers of Nashville country. This profile from The York Times maps just how that transition happened.

• Kamala camo hat: I’m not convinced that the Kamala hat is a status symbol yet — it certainly has the potential to be but won’t be released until October. Still, this Teen Vogue article is a delightfully comprehensive analysis.

• Miss Pamela’s Western shirts: A Substack interview with historic groupie Pamela Des Barres, who once sewed Western shirts for the likes of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Jimmy Page.

Miss P: I made my first western shirt for Chris Hillman, hand embroidered it with drops of my blood in a little white voodoo ritual. Then made one for Gram Parsons when they were the Flying Burrito Brothers.

---

Country artists:

---

You’re a free subscriber to truck songs. Thank you so much for being here!

For the full experience, become a paying subscriber.

If you love this newsletter, the best way to support it is by sharing it with a friend.

1. I swear to god, I didn’t make that name up. The guy is living, breathing Harry Styles spoonerism.

2. The true war is class war, obviously.