In praise of country music (and other stories)

Country music's popularity may be due to the power of its stories

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I lived with my sister and her family in Utah where I landed a temporary job at a small factory doing manual labor. Not the kind of labor that gets dirt under your nails. No, it was the mind-and-seat-numbing kind. My brother-in-law, a very successful businessman and entrepreneur, kept telling my sister how good this was for me and how I would learn to appreciate more stimulating jobs, and how I would become even more motivated to get an education. I thought, “Yeah, right! It doesn’t take more than one day at that place to figure out I should stay in school.”

Working the swing shift, I’d sit for eight hours staring through a microscope at a spool of tiny copper wire, coiling it around a small metal rod. When I reached the correct number of rows upon rows, I’d snip the wire and start over. For the life of me, to this day I can’t recall what those thingamajigs were used for, but I can still remember turning, counting, snipping, and repeating the same drill hour after hour, night after night.

That was the summer I learned to like country music.

Fortunately, we employees were allowed to bring our own radios. Having an iPod would have been great, but, of course, they weren’t invented yet. Besides, I probably would have never met my goofy little friend and coworker. A college student trying to make ends meet, she’d stoop her short frame over the microscope, staring tirelessly through her oversized eyeglasses. Somehow, with country music wafting out of her radio, she seemed unbothered by the tedium of our work.

Now, I admit I was a bit of a music snob, and clearly, this woman was “country before country was cool.” As far as I was concerned, country music was for corn-pickin’ hicks and, as an L.A.-raised teenager, I didn’t want any part of it. But attitudes can change—even those of city girls—when you have to sit for hours and hours doing menial labor. 

After just a few nights, I’d exhausted my list of interesting topics and friendly questions. So, when I finally let my friend explain her penchant for country music, she unlocked the secret: every song tells a story. Hmmm. Of course, not every country song told a story, but almost, and maybe, just maybe, if I could get past the twang and redneck image of country music, I could find something in it to like. After all, who doesn’t like a story? Children flock to the library for storytime. Teenagers give rapt attention to weekend gossip while ignoring teachers’ Monday-morning lessons. And let’s face it: it’s hard for anyone to resist eavesdropping on a juicy tale, even when told by a perfect stranger at the grocery store.

Good writers know the power of stories. That’s why, instead of beginning with the straight who-what-where-when-why-and-how, good journalists will hook us with some titillating tidbit, turning otherwise boring news into a human interest story. This is why I prefer hearing the news delivered on National Public Radio than on some other straight-news station. It's also why it's fun to pick up a Reader’s Digest where this stratagem is used in almost every article. For the same reason, I love memoirs. They're stories of real people living real lives who are conquering real problems and celebrating real victories of everyday consequence.

Not only do stories make things more interesting, but they also make things more memorable. In fact, a good story is the very best way to get ideas to “stick,” according to brothers Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick. Furthermore, they tell us, “Stories have the amazing dual power to simulate and inspire.” In other words, as we listen to others talk about their lives, we can better understand our own and we feel empowered to improve.

Even better, from others’ stories we can gain wisdom without having to learn through our own experience. Eleanor Roosevelt is often quoted as saying, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” 

I disagree. 

People are interesting, and we’re hungry to know how they avoid mistakes, make good choices, and fight life’s battles. Why, for instance, do mothers read “mommy blogs?” Naturally, they're delighted to pick up a few parenting tips, but mostly they're comforted finding others have similar feelings and experiences.  A recent book review said we use stories to shape our own truths. Nothing could be truer for teenagers’ whose very survival depends on knowing the stories of their peers. According to a recent article in National Geographic,

Teens gravitate toward peers . . . to invest in the future rather than the past. We enter a world made by our parents. But we will live most of our lives, and prosper (or not) in a world run and remade by our peers. Knowing, understanding, and building relationships with them bear[s] critically on success.*

And say what you want about Oprah, but her 25-year-long show had an almost universal appeal, attracting viewers of all ages because she helped people tell their stories while the rest of us got to listen. 

This appetite to relate to others does not wane with age, either. In fact, according to Mary Pipher, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, the elderly can be almost consumed with talking about how their friends die. As boring as talk of cancer and pneumonia can be to the rest of us, they desperately want to hear stories of how their peers fought the last great battle.

I'm told yesterday’s Super Bowl entertainment featured no country music, much to the relief of many. Maybe our country has moved past the popularity surge of country music. That’s OK. I just hope we never outgrow the need for stories.

* “Beautiful Brains,” by David Dobbs, National Geographic, February 2012.