Walking the Line

Country Music Lyricists and American Culture

Thomas Alan Holmes, Roxanne Harde

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780739169681
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Ethnomusicology

An insightful and wide-ranging look at one of America's most popular genres of music, Walking the Line: Country Music Lyricists and American Culture examines how country songwriters engage with their nation's religion, literature, and politics. Country fans have long encountered the concept of walking the line, from Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" to Waylon Jennings's "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line." Walking the line requires following strict codes, respecting territories, and, sometimes, recognizing that only the slightest boundary separates conflicting allegiances. However, even as the term acknowledges control, it suggests rebellion, the consideration of what lies on the other side of the line, and perhaps the desire to violate that code. For lyricists, the line presents a moment of expression, an opportunity to relate an idea, image, or emotion. These lines represent boundaries of their kind as well, but as the chapters in this volume indicate, some of the more successful country lyricists have tested and expanded the boundaries as they have challenged musical, social, and political conventions, often reevaluating what "country" means in country music. From Jimmie Rodgers's redefinitions of democracy, to revisions of Southern Christianity by Hank Williams and Willie Nelson, to feminist retellings by Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to masculine reconstructions by Merle Haggard and Cindy Walker, to Steve Earle's reworking of American ideologies, this collection examines how country lyricists walk the line. In weighing the influence of the lyricists' accomplishments, the contributing authors walk the line in turn, exploring iconic country lyrics that have tested and expanded boundaries, challenged musical, social, and political conventions, and reevaluated what "country" means in country music.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Credits
• Introduction
• “Nobody Knows but Me”
• Cindy Walker, Lyle Lovett, and the West
• “Help Your Brother along the Road”
• JC: Johnny Cash and Faith
• Religious Doctrine in the Mid-1970s to 1980s Country Music Concept Albums of Willie Nelson
• Grace to Catch a Falling Soul
• Loretta Lynn, Appalachian Storyteller and Autobiographer
• “Branded” Man: Merle Haggard’s Romance of the Outlier
• Townes Van Zandt
• Wildness, Eschatology, and Enclosure in the Songs of Townes Van Zandt
• “Where it counts I’m real”
• “Sin City”
• Weeping Willows and Long Black Veils
• “They draft the white trash first ‘round here anyway”
• Index
• About the Contributors