Pop music – The Red Pen of Doom

Yes, this is a music video, and we will play it because MTV resolutely refuses to do their damn job. Have a look and listen, then we will TALK ABOUT ALL THE THINGS.

First off, I come here to talk smack about lyrics, not the actual music video. The video is fine. It’s not blowing my mind and it’s not making me close my eyes and chant a lullaby to make it go away.

The words are what we are here for, and the words are GOOD.

Dissecting the lyrics, but not in an icky dead frog way like biology class

Let’s go after the first few lines:

Half of my high school got too drunk
Half of my high school fell in love
With the girl next door
In their daddy’s Ford
Half of my main street’s mini skirts
Half of my main street’s dressed for church
It could use some rain
And a fresh coat of paint

Such a great way of painting a picture of her hometown and the people who live there without giving everyone the same hues and textures.

Because let’s be honest: half of all pop songs are about getting drunk, and half of all pop songs are about falling in love, but few pop or country songs dare to have a lot of nuance or subtlety. They’re more likely to hit you over the head with a single message, like, “I’m on a BOAT!” then repeat that message six hundred times.

Now, the chorus:

Half of my hometown’s still hangin’ around
Still talkin’ about that one touchdown
They’re still wearin’ red and black
Go Bobcats, while the other half
Of my hometown they all got out
Some went north
Some went south
Still lookin’ for a feelin’ half of us ain’t found
So stay or leave
Part of me will always be
Half of my hometown

Oh, here we go. I don’t really have a home town, being born on a military base we left after a year. Kept on hopping around bases in the Germany and the Holland and the New York–so if you put a Glock to my noggin and asked me for a single detail about my hometown, couldn’t tell you a damn thing. Throw a blindfold on me and ask me whether an F-15 or F-16 is flying overhead and I’m you’re man.

However: we now live in a one-stoplight logging town, where half the town does show up to wear maroon and gray every Friday night and is still talking about that one touchdown. So I feel these lyrics in a way that Justin Bieber could never reach me with the lyrics of his masterpiece, “Baby, Baby, Baby.”

Half of our prom queens cut their hair
Half of them think that it ain’t fair
The quarterback moved away and never came back
Half of my family is happy I left
The other half worries I’ll just forget
Where I came from
Same place where they came from

I could not love this more. Beautiful lyrics and they do touch on the touch choice facing anyone from a small town: stay for family and neighbors and friends, or leave for opportunities and dreams. Totally get that.

Now we get the chorus again, so I’ll delete that chunk and give you the next real bit. Say hello to the bridge and the closing:

Backroads raise us
Highways they take us
Memories make us wanna go back

To our hometown, settle down
Talk about that one touchdown
Raise some kids in red and black
Go Bobcats, while the other half
Of my hometown was in the crowd
They knew the words
They sang them loud
And all I wanna do is make them proud
Cause half of me will always be
Knoxville, Tennessee
My hometown
My hometown

Heard this song again and again, making the ending anything but a surprise. I know exactly what is coming. And the last lines still hit hard.

VERDICT

Here’s the deal: I enjoy pop songs and Angry Indie Acoustic stuff far, far more than country music. However: country and rap songs tend to tell this thing we call a story. They also get more inventive with lyrics, echoes, and reversals with wording.

The Chicks song, TRAVELING SOLDIER, is a freaking masterpiece.

Do the lyrics to MY HOMETOWN do the job? Paula Abdul would say, “Yes, yes, a thousand times, YES!” but she’d mean it and Emelio Estevez would mean it this time and they’d still be married today. Ben Affleck and J. Lo, do not listen to this song, move to a small town, and get married to each other or another human being again. Hold off for a decade or two.

Kelsea Ballerini nails it in a few hundred words. Seriously, count them up. If you don’t count the repeated chorus, it is shocking how few words she uses to do a complicated job of making us see her hometown and feel all these choices and people.

11/10, beautiful job, give us more more MORE.

Did you hear this song and swear it was Nicki the Minaj? I did. There aren’t many singers who can talk faster than the speed of light.

For a pop song on the radios, though, it’s not bad. And as a video, the visuals are interesting. They hopped on some kind of metal tube full of explosives, used time lapse photography pretty well and flew back home to get it on with Final Cut Pro or whatever. And it works out fine.

Also: this is the same singer who did that killer cover of LOOK AT ME NOW, which I think she did better than the original with Chris Brown and Lil’ Wayne.

I salute you, Karmin from Nebraska, and hope you keep on trying new things in Music Land. (Note: Her name is actually Amy, and she and the other main guy are from Boston, so the line she said about being from Nebraska is just literary license and such.)