Title "Stand by Your Man/There Ain't No Future In
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TITLE "STAND BY YOUR MAN/THERE AIN'T NO FUTURE IN THIS" THREE DECADES OF ROMANCE IN COUNTRY MUSIC by S. DIANE WILLIAMS Presented to the American Culture Faculty at the University of Michigan-Flint in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Liberal Studies in American Culture Date 98 8AUGUST 15 988AUGUST Firs t Reader Second Reader "STAND BY YOUR MAN/THERE AIN'T NO FUTURE IN THIS" THREE DECADES OF ROMANCE IN COUNTRY MUSIC S. DIANE WILLIAMS AUGUST 15, 19SB TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Introduction - "You Never Called Me By My Name" Page 1 Chapter 1 — "Would Jesus Wear A Rolen" Page 13 Chapter 2 - "You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man./ Stand By Your Man"; Lorrtta Lynn and Tammy Wynette Page 38 Chapter 3 - "Think About Love/Happy Birthday Dear Heartache"; Dolly Parton and Barbara Mandrell Page 53 Chapter 4 - "Do Me With Love/Love Will Find Its Way To You"; Janie Frickie and Reba McEntire F'aqe 70 Chapter 5 - "Hello, Dari in"; Conpempory Male Vocalists Page 90 Conclusion - "If 017 Hank Could Only See Us Now" Page 117 Appendix A - Comparison Of Billboard Chart F'osi t i ons Appendix B - Country Music Industry Awards Appendix C - Index of Songs Works Consulted PREFACE I grew up just outside of Flint, Michigan, not a place generally considered the huh of country music activity. One of the many misconception about country music is that its audience is strictly southern and rural; my northern urban working class family listened exclusively to country music. As a teenager I was was more interested in Motown than Nashville, but by the time I reached my early thirties I had became a serious country music fan. That loyalty continues t od ay'. The concept for this thesis began as a term paper for a course on the American character. In that paper I looked exclusively at the work of Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. The instructor, Dr. Nora Faires, encouraged me to expand the paper into this study. I would like to thank her for her guidance and encouragement during this project. I would like to thank my family for their support, for understanding my absences at various family gatherings, for their proofreading skills, for cooking their own meals, and often mine. But most of al1, I would like to thank them for their faith in me; they believed that I could complete this project, even on days when I had serious doubts. Additionally, I would like to thank Tom Samoray of radio station WKCQ in Saginaw, Michigan. I interviewed Mr. Samoray early in the project and he was generous in sharing his knowledge and insights about country music and offering helpful information concerning other resources. The Bowling Green State University Music Library staff was most helpful in assisting me in gathering a variety of statistical data, as was the staff of the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, Tennessee, where the bulk of my research was done. "YOU NEVER CALLED ME BY MY NAME" INTRODUCTION This study examines gender roles as portrayed in the lyrics of country music songs, looking specifically at the ways in which men and women are shown interacting in their romantic relationships. Further, the study will examine whether the portrayal of these relationships has changed during the last three decades, and if so in what ways. If we are to analyze country music, we must first determine how it is to be defined; what it is and equally important what it is not. What unique characteristics does it possess? What issues does it speak to and to whom are those issues addressed? These questions will be the basis of this study. Country music has been the subject of other academic studies, which have generally described it as being shallow, simplistic, sexist and having lyrics that are consistently mundane. (McKern P.106.) This image has not gone unnoticed among those inside the music industry. Singer David Allen Coe’s 1978 hit, "You Never Called Me By My Name" addresses this issue on two fronts. At the surface level this song discusses the lack of respect that certain lesser-known country artists receive; Well it was all that I could do to keep from cryin’ Sometimes it seems so useless to remain But you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’ You never even called me by my name. You don’t have to call me Waylon Jennings And you don’t have to call me Charlie Fride Page 1 And you don’t have to call me Merl Haggard any more Even though your on my fightin’ side. And I’ll hang around as you long as will let me And I never minded standin’ in the rain But you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’ You never called me by my name. Well I’ve heard my name a -few times in your phone book And I’ve seen it on signs where I’ve played But the only time I know I’ll hear David Allen Coe Is when Jesus has his -final judgement day. These lyrics are about more than a country singer who is consistently called by other singers names. At issue here is the lack of recognition that country music receives as a cultural form. Country music as the song indicates has been "standing in the rain" for a long time, waiting to be acknowledged for the contributions it has made to American culture. The remainder of the song describes the stereotypical view that many outside of country music hold about its (Spoken) Well a friend of my named Steve Goodman wrote that song, and he told me it was the perfect country and western song. I wrote him back a letter and told him it was not the perfect country and western song, because he hadn’t said anything at all about mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin’ drunk. Well he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and after readin’ it I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and western song, and I felt obliged to include it on this album, the last verse goes like this here: Well I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison And I went to pick her up in the rain But before I could get to the station in my Page 2 pick-up truck She got runned over by a damned old train. This is probably the view that many Americans have of country music, and in some ways this parody image is accurate. But while these themes are important in country music there is much more to it than that, as this study will show. THE AUDIENCE Perhaps the greatest misconception about country music, is that it is a very narrowly-based genre. That it is followed only by middle-aged, white, rural, southern, and working class Americans, who have little education and even less sophistication. We might term this the Hee Haw image. If that were ever the case, and there is little evidence to prove that is was, it is certainly not true today. In the last ten years there has been a tremendous increase in the popularity of country music, a rise nearly unprecedented for any American cultural form. Recent demographic studies show a relatively broad based audience for country music. One such study, conducted by Simmons Market Research Bureau in 1984, provides the following statistics: 15.1/C of adult males and 17.67. of adult females in the United States listen primarily or exclusively to country music radio stations. Of those listeners 7.6/C of the males and 12.2/C of Page 3 the -females were black, out o-f a total population in which 9.47. and 13.67. respectively are black. The number o-f Hispanic listeners is also in nearly direct proportion to their percentages in the population. O-f those surveyed, sixty percent said they were listening to more country music than they had -five years ago. Twenty- two percent "hate country music" and twenty-five percent are die hard fans. The survey also showed that among country music fans, fifty-five percent were between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. This statistic surprised many, for it has been a long accepted belief that country fans were much older than the general population (Galen P. 1.). Despite stereotypes that country music is primarily accepted in the south, this study indicated very little difference in popularity between various geographic regions. Perhaps less surprising, many people who are fans said they did not think their friends liked country music and consequently they remain closet fans themselves. This proved to be the case most especially among the younger more affluent 1i steners. The Recording Industry Association of America sponsored a similar survey in 1985 with nearly identical results. In addition to the previous statistics, they also discovered that men buy 557. of all record albums and tapes in the U.S., and dominate in purchases of all music categories except twos Page 4 country music and gospel. In the country category women make 537. o-f the purchases as compared to 377. -for women in the rock and classical music categories and only 227. -for jazz (Warner P. 10.). At -first glance educational attainment and income seemed to mesh with the stereotype. Yet upon closer examination of the two previous studies, in addition to one commissioned by the Country Music Foundation in 1986, some inconsistencies surfaced.