Thoughts On A Song Called "Kick It In The Sticks."

CLEARLY a country hottie rocker badass.

This is a very special song that I discovered outside of work, although other songs by this douchebag definitely got played on the radio there. But this song is his very best!

The reason this song is so special is that you can tell everything you need to know about it by looking at the art for the single, which is so kindly provided by Wikipedia.

Lucky for us, the song also has an official video, and that's where things really get good, as the lyrics, music, and images all come together to exceedingly effectively portray the biggest douchebag in modern country music.

I'm only going frog-hunting if this guy comes!

As you can see, country poet Brantley Gilbert paints an evocative portrait of “the sticks” from the very beginning of the song, explaining, “Welcome to the home of the hillbilly, baby. It’s a land of barbed wire & moonshine whiskey.” Other things that happen there that we later hear about include bass fishin’, skinny dippin’, cow tippin’, and whatever the fuck frog-giggin’ is. (Turns out, gigging just means hunting. Yes, this guy hunts frogs, and wants you to hunt frogs with him! You should do it!)

So, I wanted to mention how put-on Brantley Gilbert’s accent seems, as his rasp comes off as programmed to reflect somebody’s vision of “country rock,” but I was surprised to learn that he’s actually from Georgia. He might be exaggerating it, or he might really naturally sing like that. In any case, his vocals still sound like a stock creation of a shitty modern interpretation of “country rock.”

“Hippies, hicks, jocks, and bikers all came to kick it in the sticks” is where the message of acceptance and community is supposed to be apparent. The Wikipedia page quotes a review that states "while the aggressive guitars and spoken-word delivery can be intimidating, Gilbert’s message couldn’t be more welcoming." I call total bullshit on this welcoming message, however, because if the message is really intended to be welcoming, there is no reason to include the fight scene, which starts building up at 2:33, goes into some of those ridiculous lines about hillbilly hobbies that I mentioned earlier, and culminates with him beating up some preppy-looking dude for trying to talk to his woman.

In the first verse he mentions that he’s going to show a city slicker how to party in the woods, so it’s natural to assume that he is being instructive to such purposes when he sings, “And stay away from other boys' women/That's one damn good way for a man to get it whooped down.” I was thinking that maybe Brantley Gilbert is actually more perceptive than I think, and intending to depict, but not necessarily endorse, “country” attitudes, but then I am reminded again of the video. He doesn’t even have an actor stand-in to play the role, he does it himself! It’s hard not to attribute to this the facet that he is, consciously or not, normalizing the treatment of women as property in a song that is supposed to be welcoming and accepting. (It almost goes without saying: there are no minorities in the video.)

Asexuality-inducing.

Before he even gets to the fight in the song, he has a verse about what goes on at their parties, which includes both a shot of girls dancing around a pole (which has no place in the woods, come the fuck on here) during the line “Where‘s the girls? ‘Bout to call ‘em up” and the line “We got the jacked up trucks slap covered in mud/Bikini tops and Daisy Duke denim,” so he’s already making it clear that women serve a particular purpose at these parties; offering a challenging intellectual debate is probably not it.

On top of that, there’s thousands of other ways to depict being an asshole. For example, he could have said, “And don’t forget to throw the box away when you take the last food item out of it/That’s one damn good way for a man to get it whooped down” or “Don’t drug anyone down here/That’s one damn good way for a man to get it whooped down” or “Don’t harm children/That’s one damn good way for a man to get it whooped down.” I'm not even going to react to the phrase "whooped down," either. I just can't. I've never even heard it before, in that particular form. "Whooped on," maybe, but not "whooped down."

The other main problem with this video and song, by the way, is that not only is he objectifying women, but he is also glorifying violence. His immediate reaction is to shove the guy away from the woman, which leads the other guy to punch him, and so it goes from there. The men are “tough down here,” and you will get “your ass tore up down here” if you fuck with them. Never mind civility. Sure, the preppy guy isn’t exactly free of judgment, as the woman does not appear to be interested yet he keeps trying to talk to her, but the solution does not need to immediately jump to violence, ever, except when we’re trying to sell a record! Because that’ll dazzle people right into numb acceptance of bullshit stereotypes, and nobody (or at least, none of them) is any the wiser!

Not that you can't be fashionable & tough, because
obviously you can, but these guys seem way too
fashionable for this video.

 I do want to add that although I appreciate "hanging out by the bonfire with the good ol’ boys, havin’ a dang good time," just as much as anyone, this song seems especially defensive towards it, so I wonder who he thinks is attacking this activity that he has to speak in its favor so aggressively. On the other hand, even though I do like to "hang out by the bonfire with the good ol’ boys, havin’ a dang good time," just as much as anyone, there is also something to be said for that NOT being your major form of entertainment, considering how we live in a world filled to the brim with new things to learn and absorb. But hey, it’s BYOB, and Brantley’s brought all we need, so fuck it. Bonfire it is, even for me!

Lastly, as if you needed another reason to think this guy is a douchebag, I will leave you with the warmly nauseating knowledge that he is co-responsible for this abomination:

I know it's going to be hard to listen to, but there's a part where you'll go, "Oh no!" Lucky for you, that part is only :46 seconds in, so go ahead. Take it in. This is a genre that has no reason to exist! This is a combination that not a single person was yearning for, I guarantee it! But it sure is good douchebag confirmation!

Of Clowns & Babylon.

I have been resisting the siren song of the Blog for many years now, but I finally decided to stop being a jerk-off about it, so here we are. I'm not interested in introductory posts or anything like that, so let's just get right into this. I’m forced to listen to the young country station at work so I’ve decided to make the best of it by writing about some of the songs I hear. Here’s the first of what will hopefully be many more.

Zac Brown Band, “Goodbye In Her Eyes”

Apparently this is a pretty famous country band. They’ve won some awards and been nominated for many more. They are ALL OVER new country radio. Zac Brown looks like he could have just as easily taken the Fleet Foxes route, but he decided to go “Southern-fried” country rock instead. I’m not going to pretend like I know anything about any of his music. I’m solely interested in the shitty lyrics to a song that has been getting some pretty heavy rotation for the past few months, “Goodbye In Her Eyes.”

As you may have been able to guess from the title, this is a song about a woman who is no longer interested in the narrator. The lyrics are pretty average in their shittiness until we get to the second verse, which is opened with the following line:

“Sometimes I feel like a clown
Who can't wash off his make-up.”

So he feels like a person who is paid to entertain people who can’t remove the materials that are enabling the entertainment. The sentiment registers as fair enough, but the thing is how unbelievably earnest he is about comparing himself to a clown. But not just any clown. A horrifying clown who can’t wash his own make-up off. Under what circumstances would make-up be literally stuck to one’s face? The only scenario I can imagine is someone switching out the clown’s usual make-up with some kind of fucked up, altered non-removable make-up. Or if this same person (or some other person, whoever) snuck into his home and tattooed the make-up on his face while he was sleeping.

After thinking about this line for so long, all I can imagine is a sad little man whose only solace is the knowledge that he isn’t just a clown but also a human being trying to remove his clown make-up and finding himself unable to. He furiously scrubs his face but the make-up stays. He wails and howls and claws at himself. Frenzied, he tries to rip his face off altogether but only just manages to bleed a little. His whole body racked in sobs, he stops fighting and breathes deep and heavy. His face pulsates in agony. He has no idea what is happening and somehow knows he never will.

Then again, maybe the clown image is apt after all.

I wish Mr. Show was still around just so we could get a young country parody out of them, but it’s probably not even necessary considering the fact that this song (among many others) already exists.

But wait, there’s more. What I hadn’t really noticed before in the five hundred and eight times I’ve heard this song is the rest of the damn verse, which is completely incomprehensible to me. Either I’m entirely misunderstanding the reference or no one else has seemed to notice that this is weird. When I do a search on the particular line, all I seem to find are lyrics pages, Biblical articles that have nothing to do with the song, or Twitter/Tumblr posts of the lyrics by fans.

But anyway. On with the verse. After he waxes philosophical regarding the clown business, he apologizes for not being Prince Charming (what an oblique reference), but then he says he would trade a thousand Babylons to be in her arms. What the fuck does that mean!? (The verse wraps up with her love being like a tide. The most boring and easy metaphor for the motion of love, ever, but never even mind that.)

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY TRADING A THOUSAND BABYLONS FOR HER LOVE IS SUPPOSED TO BE IMPRESSIVE.

The actual line goes,

“But I would trade a thousand Babylons
To be in her arms tomorrow.”

WHAT THE FUCK? I can only conjure two likely meanings to Babylon here, either the Biblical city of sin or just a large city in general, and how the fuck does trading a thousand evil cities or a thousand regular cities to be with her tomorrow mean anything at all? When you say, “I’d give my right arm for Animorphs 48-51, plus a couple others, to complete my collection” that only means something because of how much you value your right arm. Is Zac Brown actually the most subversive country musician ever by suggesting that he values Babylon almost as much (but not quite) as the girl in question? How is this notion even remotely romantic? There is nothing personal about it, either, unless Zac Brown is the mayor of Babylon.

The structure of ridiculous image (clown), followed by trite, easy image (Prince Charming) being repeated with Babylon against tide almost actually seems intended, but that’s just another example of how much this song comes off as a parody of itself.

I just checked out the official video and I’m a little surprised to find out that there’s actually a circus theme to it, and there’s even a shot of a clown removing his make-up when that particular line is sung (or maybe he's supposed to be failing to remove it, it's hard to ascertain), but the video is completely irony-free (as far as I can tell) and the Babylon discrepancy is not addressed.

There’s nothing else of note in this song, but if you want to get depressed, check out some of the Youtube comments left by people who can relate to this heartfelt tune.