Mud on the Tires

Hello there faithful readers! I’m Ashley, the resident “Country Music Expert”. Let me tell you a bit about myself, I was born and raised on country music. Some of my earliest memories are watching the Statler Brothers Show with my Grandparents and my first concert was to see Neal McCoy in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. My second concert was to see a (very young) Leann Rimes at the Bloomsburg Fair.

I’m not as big in to country music these days; I mainly listen to ska and punk, with some top 40 and country mixed in. I lost interest in country in part due to what it sounds like now. I’m sorry, but Taylor Swift is not country and Toby Keith is my redneck nightmare.

For my first post, I’m going to talk to you about Brad Paisley and his song “Mud on the Tires”. Brad Paisley is by far one of the best guitar players in country music today; he’s absolutely phenomenal. I wish I could have found an example; however youtube failed me and they’re all crappy recordings from fans at concerts. He has truly perfected the art of a “high pitched” guitar solo. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

However, “Mud on the Tires” is quite possibly one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, it’s essentially a redneck cliché about buying a new truck and going mudding. The song doesn’t actually have much substance to it, and I find that slightly insulting to its country roots. When you consider some of the more classic country songs, not matter how silly they may have seemed – they all have substance. This song doesn’t have that, and that is a major gaff when it comes to what I see country music as. When I think back to songs that I still know the words to and that I won’t change the station when they come on – they all have some sort of substance behind them; consider a few songs “Fancy” by Reba McEntire or “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band. Those songs have a substantial meaning behind them.

“Fancy” is a song about a young girl who gets sent away by her mother to be a prostitute. She goes through having her mother make her a fancy red dress, and cockroaches crawling across her shoe all the way to making her life better and making a name for herself. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is about a battle between a man and Satan. It’s a classic good vs evil story that is based on Georgia and features amazing fiddle playing.

For a better example of what Brad Paisley is capable of, I’m including “Whiskey Lullaby” in this post. Paisley joined Alison Krauss for this beautiful song. The song is about a man and a woman, and the woman is caught cheating and the man leaves, eventually drinking himself to death. (In the video, he’s portrayed as a soldier returning from the war, which walks in on the cheating.) She follows suit and also dies, in the video they are reunited. It’s a sad song; again, it has a meaning love never fails, even in death.

See ya around!
Ashley