Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-19-2016 12:00 AM Establishing Female Resistance as Tradition in Country Music: Towards a More Refined Discourse Catherine Keron The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Norma Coates The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Popular Music and Culture A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Catherine Keron 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Recommended Citation Keron, Catherine, "Establishing Female Resistance as Tradition in Country Music: Towards a More Refined Discourse" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3970. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3970 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This thesis analyzes facets of resistance in the lyrics of female country music performers and explores how their articulations of female resistance draw on and rework Appalachian folk traditions within country music. Beginning with the musical practices of Appalachian women, who used music to lament their lives restricted by domestic responsibilities, this thesis examines expressions of female resistance through lyrical analysis, with a concentration on female country performers from 1995 to the present. Despite evolving into a performance tradition, female resistance in country music continues to address the lived experiences of its female audience. As such, the female resistance tradition is an enduring component of country music that has addressed women’s issues for over a century. Keywords Country music, women, gender, resistance, patriarchal ideologies, country music culture, response songs, revenge songs, domesticity Acknowledgments My sincerest thanks go to my supervisor, Dr. Norma Coates, for her constant patience, wisdom, and guidance throughout this project. I also wish to thank my second reader, Dr. Keir Keightley, for his valuable insight. This thesis would not exist without the help of my amazing mom and dad, whose tireless support and encouragement kept me going as I embarked on this ‘character building’ endeavor. Thank you! And my best friend, Kelly, many thanks for scraping me off the floor on a regular (daily) basis . ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on’. Thanks Kendra – a July evening sitting on your basement floor digging through your boxes of old CDs unearthed my love of the Dixie Chicks and truly marked the genesis of this project. Thanks Karly – for appropriately hijacking a sound system to make a statement. Meet me on County Road 233. I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my grandma, Marion Keron, who would have been so very proud to add this to her coffee table collection of family theses. ii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Research Question ................................................................................................ 10 1.3 Research Methodology & Frameworks ................................................................ 11 1.4 Chapter Organization ............................................................................................ 13 1.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 16 2 Appalachian Roots and Early Country Music ........................................................ 16 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Genre Origins: Ralph Peer, Roots Music, and Female Country Repertoires ....... 18 2.3 Appalachian Women: Their Lives in the Private Sphere ...................................... 23 2.4 Appalachian Women: Their Specific Musical Practices in the Private Sphere ... 27 2.5 From Private to Public: Women’s Musical Repertoires at Various Points in Country Music History ......................................................................................... 34 2.6 Concluding Thoughts ............................................................................................ 41 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 43 3 Female Critiques of Domesticity: 1980s to Present ................................................. 43 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 43 3.2 Walking Away: Female Artists in Late1980s and Early 1990s ........................... 44 3.3 Shania Twain: Women’s Pleasure as a Priority ................................................... 48 iii 3.4 Deana Carter: A Woman’s Humor ...................................................................... 55 3.5 Kacey Musgraves: A Woman’s Cynicism ........................................................... 59 3.6 Concluding Thoughts ............................................................................................ 64 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 66 4 Response and Revenge Songs: 1990s to the Present .............................................. 66 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 66 4.2 The Dixie Chicks: Pushing Back and Ruffling Feathers ..................................... 68 4.3 The Dixie Chicks: Political Controversy & Responding to Marginalization ....... 76 4.4 Miranda Lambert: Reinvigorating Violent Revenge ............................................ 88 4.5 Maddie and Tae: Answering ‘Bro Country .......................................................... 95 4.6 Concluding Thoughts .......................................................................................... 102 Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................... 104 5 Conclusions and Further Research ........................................................................ 104 5.1 Summary ............................................................................................................. 104 5.2 Further Research ................................................................................................. 108 5.3 Implications ......................................................................................................... 110 5.4 Significance ......................................................................................................... 111 5.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 112 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 113 Discography .................................................................................................................... 123 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 127 iv 1 Chapter 1 1 Introduction Miranda Lambert’s 2010 chart-topping single, “The House That Built Me”, a song steeped in sentimental longing for a childhood home, frequently moves the country singer to tears in her live performances (Eggenberger). In the song, Lambert, after getting “lost in this old world”, returns home to “find [her]self” and asks the current owners to allow her to come in so she can “touch this place or feel it”, taking one last “memory/from the house that built me” (Lambert, “House”). Such songs remain ever popular in country music as the “impulse towards home and domesticity” manifests in songs depicting the “willing and often eager decision to leave home, the heartaches that accompany the departure, [and] the consequent sense of nostalgia that eventually sets in” (Malone “Above” 53). While Lambert’s emotional retrospective in “The House That Built Me” certainly has contributed to her popularity, she is perhaps better known for songs that quite violently oppose the so-called virtues of hearth and home. For instance, in her 2005 single, “Kerosene”, Lambert responds to her lover’s infidelity by burning down his house: “I’m soaking it in kerosene/Light ‘em up and watch it burn” (“Kerosene”). Likewise, in “Mama’s Broken Heart”, released in 2011, Lambert once again