Fun With iTunes

So, I have this iPod...

It's an older model, but I think it's cool. It holds more music than I could ever listen to. I have discovered pod casts because of this thing too. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to take a cross country trip just so I can listen to all the music and pod casts I now have. (I can play stuff through my speakers in my car.)

This little iPod thingy has introduced me to a whole new world of downloading (legally!) new music that I might not have listened to before. It's terribly addictive. Rather like heroine. Not that I would know or anything, but....well...you get the idea.

I have learned something about myself that I never thought would have been true of me. I never in a million years would have thought this, but I think it's time to come clean and admit it. Ok. Here goes.

I like country music.

There, I said it. Not ALL country music mind you. I'm still not down with that twangy stand-by-your-man nonsense. But there are a few out and out country artists whose music I have happily purchased. Like a dieter gleefully buying a Three Musketeers bar and hording it away in a dark corner, I have country music files secretly tucked away on my iPod. They're mixed in with the Ani DiFranco, David Bowie and Indigo Girls. It's true.

My two favorites these days are Gretchen Wilson and Trish Murphy.

Gretchen has two songs on her latest album, All Jacked Up, that I have been known to sing along with, erm..with great gusto while drivin' down the road. The first one, California Girls is one of my favorites. Check out these lyrics,

"Ain't you glad we ain't all California girls
Ain't you glad there's still a few of us left.
That know how to rock your world
Ain't afraid to eat fried chicken and dirty dance to Merle
Ain't you glad we ain't all California girls.

There ain't nothing wrong with plastic surgery
Well Dolly Parton never looked so good to me
Everybody ought to be exactly who they want to be
But that Paris Hilton Gets under my skin
With her big fake smile and and her painted on tan..."

I admit, I have never listened to an entire Merle Haggard record and I would be eatin' fried tofu rather than chicken, but this is the kind of tune that makes me proud to have curves. Especially in this town. Then there's Full Time Job, a relaxing little number about how easy it is to be a mom.

"It's the hardest gig I've known,
I work my fingers to the bone
Yeah, the dishes and the diapers never stop
Lousy pay, there ain't no 401k
I know this may come as a shock.
But this here's a full time job

Well I'm takin' a vacation
I could use a little fun
I'll be sippin' on the silence
And soaking up the sun
I'm leavin' you my apron
You can try it on for size
You said there's nothing to it
So I'm sure you'll be fine."

Trish Murphy is a singer/songwriter from Austin, Texas that I think I found on a compilation list from Lilith Fair. She has this one song called Thelma and Louise that's kind of in the same spirit as the Dixie Chick's song Goodbye, Earle. It's about two girlfriends hittin' the road after their marriages disintegrate into an angry pile of divorce papers and abuse.

"I should have run away I said, but I just didn't care.
You get so used to feelin' fear that you don't know it's there.
You holy rollers don't know jack about domestic strife
Until you seen my daddy lit up, beatin' on his wife.
I clocked him with a skillet, grabbed Momma and the keys
And we floored it on the interstate
Like Thelma and Louise."

You can listen to a 60 second clip of the song HERE

I always like an artist who writes their own music as these two ladies both do. I guess what I really get a kick out of is their outspokenness and spunk. How refreshing to hear a song making fun of the Hollywood ideal of super-thinness or the double standard of mothers working all day for no pay. Trish has this great honesty to her voice. I feel like she's telling me a story that she thinks I really ought to hear.

If this kind of thing keeps going on, I may have to buy a pair of cowboy boots and learn how to line dance.