truck songs of the week
McDoubles, no trespassing signs & rain on the roof of an F-150
This week is restless. Pushing up against the limits. Trespassing. Country star after country star after country star. Infinity mirrors.
Drive safe.
Get the full 2023 playlist here.
“How Does It Sound” by Dylan Schneider
Friday night. “Somethin’ ice-cold.” Tim McGraw and George Strait. Just a little reminder that the only appropriate place to fall in love is the cab of a Ford F-150.
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
“Cop Car” by Keith Urban
A banger of unbelievable proportions. It’s old. I don’t care. What’s not to love? A first date that takes place on restricted airport property? A love interest who perfectly embodies the wild child/preacher’s daughter spin that country music puts on the original Madonna/whore complex?
Or maybe it’s the way that you can just tell Sam Hunt wrote this song. Hunt’s version of this song is bouncier, more obviously R&B influenced. But even underneath Urban’s rock tendencies — his production always sounds wide open like the prairie to me — Hunt’s signature push/pull is unmistakable. Like a vocal revving. Listen for the hitched-up quality in the line, “You were thinking that running for it would make a good story / I was thinking you were crazy as hell.”
No notes.
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
“Throw It Back (feat. Keith Urban)” by BRELAND
Heavy on the Keith Urban this week but that’s only because I love him exactly as much as I hate Dodge Ram trucks1.
“Throw It Back” uses hip-hop elements (crisp trap beat, “Shawty” as a term of endearment, invocation of Jesus) to subvert expectations of a country song. Or maybe it’s using country elements (shots of whiskey, banjo, invocation of Jesus) to subvert expectations of a hip-hop song.
Urban certainly seems to legitimize the song’s innate countryness — except, of course, the guy was born in New Zealand. But do we care? He sure feels like rural America. Rural America-washed, you might say. Presumably, he acquired his U.S. passport somewhere between his rock and roll baptism and an eye-bleedingly sincere tribute to the Navy SEALs2. Pure country hyperreality.
Consider “Old Town Road.” In 2019, Billboard booted Lil Nas X’s song from the country charts for its lack of “modern country elements.”3 That’s how we ended up with a remixed version featuring the ultimate modern country element: Billy Ray Cyrus. But the crux of the song’s country-trap charm is its subversion. A country song with no trucks, only Porsches and Maseratis. There’s a tripped-up delight in the juxtaposition (and rhyme) of “horse” and “Porsche.” And then, eventually, “Old Town Road” became canon. The elements that were once startling become integrated into the concept of country — to be referenced and subverted by other songs down the line.
“Throw It Back” is one such song. BRELAND traded Marlboros for blunts4. His lyrics draw on the urban and rural South5, mashing together two aesthetics in a way that feels both shocking and inevitable. Do hip-hop and country have more in common than not? I can’t decide.
Of course, “Throw It Back” runs because songs like Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise - Remix (feat. Nelly)” once walked6. That “brand-new Chevy with a lift kit” is not a vehicle for ranch work. You might as well haul your horse trailer behind a Porsche like Lil Nas X does. That lifted Chevy (Silverado) is not rural. It’s country. Like Sam Hunt putting back the seats in his Cadillac. Function has left the building. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Tim McGraw’s F-250 anymore.
But that wasn’t the original truck either. The original truck isn’t in a song. The original truck drives. The original truck is parked on a dirt road. The original truck needs an oil change. It’s undepictable. An irretrievable reality.
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m about two beers away from changing the name of this newsletter to “Modern Country Elements.”
I exercised heroic restraint here and did not include a photo of the Marlboro man.
Is country the music of the South or the West? Does anyone know?
I’m speaking vehicularly, of course, but The New York Times has a chronology of country rap here. You’ll note I “forgot” to mention Kid Rock.
Keith!!!!!
Well don't I feel edjeecated now. Learned that when country men sing "mama" they mean "baby" or "babygirl" and not like, oh, Sugarland, means it. Learned thersa complex too explaining the details, too! Keith does sound like an entire prairie. Sooo...maybe country is more in the Midwest.