The Musings Behind the Music- a discussion in three parts
In which Joe writes some longer form content. We grapple with some big ideas here. Tim McGraw makes jokes also, but you'll have to wait until next week for that.
I have a story to tell you guys. It is factually true although I assume some creative embellishing took place in the process of transmission. A fellow I know was on an airplane. Seated to the right of him was a nun wearing all the proper attire. To the left of him, a girl who was decidedly not a nun. She epitomized the stereotypical valley girl. On the left you had bold. Modern. Colorful. On the right you had sedate. Old fashioned. Monochromatic. The contrast was amusing and my friend felt it noteworthy enough to mention to me. There were some interesting observations that he shared with me. These observations in contrasts have developed into philosophical thoughts that touch on country music and the paradox of why diverse nationwide audiences relate to such an insular genre form.
Joe here. Hold on to your hats. There’s a lot to unpack here. I have bit off significantly more than I can chew in one post, so I am dividing this into 3 sections. Each grapples with a philosophical concept and as the piece continues into parts two and three, more musical ideas enter the mix. Hope you enjoy!
Airplanes are an interesting heuristic in assessing the state of modern society. 20 years ago, airplanes were a sanctuary. Even though cell phones existed, there was no connectivity in the air. There was no mobile internet access. When the doors to the airplane closed, you were sealed off from the world. Perhaps you brought a newspaper. Perhaps you brought a book. Perhaps a notepad. More often than not, you'd end up turning to the person next to you and saying hello. Small talk. Things that you would say in an elevator to each other. How are you? What are you doing? Where are you from and to where are you going? That's typically where it would end, but it brought us a common solidarity to the experience. We were both headed somewhere. We were both going somewhere. These days, if you meet someone on an airplane and say hello to them, you get a funny look. Why are you not on your phone? Why are you not on your tablet? The new airplane experience is fundamentally a private one. We both are on a plane, but I am by myself. I am connected to my world. I'm texting, chatting, or DMing with my people, in my community, and this is “me time”.
One would think that the change between the old and new might be epitomized by the situation that this fellow found himself in. On the left, you had the new- the valley girl- and on the right you had the old- the nun. These are people of tremendously different backgrounds and different perspectives. It would be no surprise if the nun were to demonstrate the ways of old and start up a conversation whilst the valley girl buried herself into her phone and airpods. The results were not quite as you may have expected.
Oddly enough, despite the tremendous differences between the nun and the valley girl, both were on their phones. I don't know the rules and regulations of being a nun, but evidently they can watch movies. Top Gun: Maverick was playing on the airline app and she was plugged into headphones and watching the film. The valley girl took out her tablet and was editing photographs of herself. Both of these tasks are self absorbed. In days past, large amounts of people would go together to have a shared experience together in the theaters - ironically enough, Top Gun: Maverick actually brought some of that back into the zeitgeist- and now it is morphed into a personal task. Just me, my headphones, and the little screen in front of me.
I would posit that the activity of the valley girl is equally emblematic of the self absorbed shift of the modern age. Photographs are a snapshot of a moment. The family photo at a special occasion. Memorializing a shared activity. Taking the photograph to share the moment with another who wasn’t there. Now maybe I'm judgmental, but I don't think that editing photos of yourself for Instagram likes is the same thing. None of the shared aspects of what photography used to be are in there. It's simply selfish. I want likes. Here's what I'm going to do to get them. I'm going to take a photo of myself in a cool setting, others will be approving and jealous of the fabricated image I post of myself, and I'll get a great dopamine hit.
This story naturally got me wondering. We are so divided as a society and we all stand for a tremendous number of different things. The protagonist of this little story overheard bits and pieces of conversation during this flight and they were very revealing. There was a snippet of conversation between the valley girl and a friend. She had some negative things to say about some of the openly religious people on the flight. I fully assume that nun did not share those opinions. Certainly seems like she was devoutly and openly religious. In fact her phone conversation was quite interesting as well. Her main concern was that when she lands, “Will I still be able to get to, you know, a late Mass. Do you know if any place has one that fits my schedule?”
You really can't possibly imagine people with two different values sets. Yet on a fundamentally human level, they are very similar. Their response to the situation of being on an airplane was exactly the same modern self-focused perspective. This seems to me a very profound thought. Even though we might view ourselves as being completely and utterly different down even to our deepest values, we often act in very similar ways based on our environmental stimuli.
A powerful book entitled Bowling Alone, written by Robert Putnam, discusses these ideas in depth. The thesis of the book shows a sociological shift in the broader American culture. Change has occurred away from an environment of community and toward the individual. Being part of communal organizations or being part of large friend groups are things that all gave us meaning and greater purpose. A person was not just the sum of their job added to their domestic arrangement multiplied by their hobbies, but they were key members and contributors to various social organizations. Youth clubs, church affiliation, YMCA, civic organizations, fraternal bodies etc. A shift away from these organized structures that gave fulfillment and meaning to our everyday experiences has major consequences. These ideas are discussed in depth in the book.
The case study, see the title, is the bowling alley. It used to be common, and in senior circles still is, that the local bowling alley was a hub of community and social events. Groups of people every weekend would go together to the local bowling alley. They had relationships with people that they were going to see. They had relationships with people that they're going with. The core was this community experience. The actual bowling itself was almost tangential. Contrast that to the data set of bowlers in the late 1990s and you see something shocking. Bowling as a sport was up, but the numbers were wholly driven by individuals bowling by themselves. Associations and group bowling totals were down. This is the poster child for the sociological shift explored by Putnam. The new generation, postsuburban shift, post World War Two, the boomers, generation X, whatever you want to call it, they bowl alone. They no longer have that community experience. They're still searching for experiences. They're still going out there, they're still doing things, they're still attempting to create a self identity. But it's no longer being done together. The book goes on to detail how the decline of these bonds, dubbed “Social Capital”, lead to a fraying of the connective tissues that metaphorically bind the diverse people and cultures in our country together. A terrific read. Highly recommend.
When society has a deep and fundamental change, it affects everyone. Even traditional communities are not disaffected by change and modernity. Often, a traditional community changes as well. It just attempts to live life along the axioms of the new age that best reflect their old fashioned values. This explains why the nun so easily engaged with the Tom Cruise movie. She was still subject to all the distractions and the powers of the modern age despite the fact that she belongs to such a strong traditional community. The environment of the airplanes and all the assumed behaviors associated with traveling have changed. The nun is living in that world, the same as all of us.
The ways in which traditional communities push back at cultural change is more obvious, but the instinct to push back when confronted with a loss is universal. In the case of the nun, it was her reaching out to a colleague and asking if she would still have the ability to connect with people and her religion in a communal sense. Similarly, when the valley girl called up some friends of her and asked “since I'm in town this week, do you guys want to hit the town together and have a good time?”, she was also pushing back on the societal impulse to bowl alone. This is remarkable. Both of these people were indulging in the self-centered nature of the modern transportation experience and nonetheless, they both were seeking this connection of community. Something primal within us has a visceral need for community and tribe, and that tribal need fuels pushback. There’s a very human contradiction in our souls that both embraces and furthers the individuality of the age, but also strives to create tribe and community to fill the holes.
Music and song frequently touch deeply human characteristics such as inner contradiction and subconscious desires. In the next post, scheduled for next week, we will start to unpack the formative ideas, deeply related to the philosophical ideas unpacked above, that are beneath the surface of country music and how that explains the broad appeal of the genre.
Until next week,
Joe
Let us know in the comments or via email at Todayiheardblog@gmail.com if you like this different format. I have some longer form post ideas, and I figured this would be much more digestible way to put them out there. The alternative was a minimum 4,000 word post.
Also, what have you guys been listening to? I've been greatly enjoying Braxton Keith's new single Give Me a Sunrise. Comment below what caught your eye this week!
I'll link part 2 here when it's live. 1