By Norman Bales

Do you ever wonder why so many people listen to country music? If you’re a country
music hater, you may think it’s because the listeners are uncultured and ignorant. Would
you believe it if I told you students at Harvard studied the music of Hank Williams? If
you’re a country music lover, you may think the appeal lies in the musical quality. Really
the quality isn’t all that great, when many of the songs feature a nasal twang accompanied
by three chords on an out-of-tune guitar.

There’s a deeper reason for country music’s popularity. You have to listen carefully to
the lyrics. Look deeper than the lyrics about drinkin’, fightin’, cheatin’, trains and
trucks. Raw emotional pain underlies about 80 per cent of the lyrical content. A case in
point is seen in the following lines from a Merle Haggard song.

There’s a wall so high

That it reaches the sky

Somewhere between you and me.

In three poetic lines, the composer captured the essence of the broken communication
that destroys satisfaction in many contemporary marriages. When we marry, most of us
expect our chosen spouses to make us feel important, yield to our wishes, support all our
decisions, accept our poor behavior patterns and uncharitable attitudes, while giving us
liberal portions of affection, tenderness and devotion. Unfortunately, the people we marry
expect the same things from us. We tend to view such expectations as either unreasonable
or impossible. Our spouses think the same thing, so we start building our walls either
through a refusal to share our feelings, changing the subject when a spouse wants to talk
about these things, faultfinding or engaging ourselves elsewhere in activities away from
the home.

What can you do about it? You can listen to the country station, but that really won’t
get you beyond the misery-loves-company" syndrome. May I suggest that a far more
productive approach is to be found in a willingness to deny yourself, to take up the
cross, to become crucified with Christ and to let Jesus live in you (Matthew 16:24;
Galatians 2:20). When your sense of self-worth is defined by your relationship to Christ,
you will be freed from the tyranny of self and you can start tearing down the walls
between yourself and others.

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