Free Local Music MP3s: Listen, Download

Country Ain’t What It Used To Be, Either

Posted Mar 23, 2007 by Curtis Ross

Updated Mar 27, 2007 at 07:14 PM

Nashville songwriting once was the province of master craftsmen and women. Harlan Howard, Cindy Walker, Willie Nelson and Tom T. Hall could turn a phrase or tell a story with grace and ease.

Listen to country radio for an hour or so to hear how far it’s fallen.

It hits a new low on “A Different World,” the first single from the upcoming debut album by Bucky Covington.

Covington was a vocally and dentally challenged “American Idol” contestant who has inexplicably wound up under contract to Lyric Street Records.

The song itself, which amazingly bears three writers’ credits, turns a chain e-mail into song lyrics, a feat which must have taken 15 minutes, assuming they took a smoke break.

If you’ve never had this bit of prose forwarded your way, lucky you.

It’s a boomer take on “back in my day,” which implies that coming of age before car safety seats and bicycle helmets proves we’re tougher than these kids today.

Tucked in with fond reminiscences of lead paint and tobacco-enhanced gestations are these lines, which, unfortunately, are not sung to “The Waltons” theme:

Had three TV channels you got up to change

No video games and no satellite

Covington is 29 years old. If he grew up sans video games, cable and a remote control, it had to do with economics or parental restrictions.

But contemporary country—hell, pop songwriting in general—never met a cliché, generalization or slogan too hackneyed, hoary or just plain wrong to turn into a hit.

If “A Different World” tops the charts, expect a wave of chain mail and Internet rumor-based tunes: “They Left ‘In God We Trust’ Off the Dollar Coins,” perhaps, or “North Dakota Didn’t Need FEMA.”

Don’t forget to download and forward 10 times lest the chain be broken.