Welcome to the 23rd TV Tuesday!
1. I love pop culture.
I have always loved pop culture. TV and music, specifically. Movies and novels are okay, too, I suppose. And I have always loved great pop culture writing. TV Tuesdays are my way to practice writing about pop culture. I am not good at it, yet. At least as far as nicko2864 is concerned, as his recent comment on the YouTube version of the last TV Tuesday attests when he writes:
This has to be one of the worst succession takes ive ever heard lmao. A show about business has "too much business"?
First of all, nicko2864, Succession is a show about family, newsmedia, and politics at least as much, if not more, than it’s a show about “business.” And I stand by my statement that absolutely no one watches it for realistic depictions of mergers and aquisitions. Second, the punctuation goes inside the quotes unless you’re in the UK, where they do it wrong.
But third, you may be right that mine ranks among the worst Succession takes. I do, if I’m honest, think of myself as among the best writers who exist at the intersection of policy, social science, and self-help as they apply to sex, gender, feminism, and economics. But I may never be among the best writers covering pop culture. That’s okay. It’s okay to be bad at things. It’s, actually, I think good to be bad at things. If nothing else, it’s good for brain health to challenge your brain to new kinds of tasks. It’s no soduko, but it’s a stretch for me.
2. I’m becoming my father.
Growing up, dad would never let us listen to music in the car with him. It was our chance to talk, he said. I respect and appreciate the hell out of that now. But back then I spent a lot of time listening to music when I wasn’t being chaffered by him. I’d spend hours in my room sitting on the floor beading string and/or knotting hemp into intricate jewelry listening to CDs. Alone in the car, he listened exclusively to talk radio. This baffled me.
Back then, CDs were expensive and I didn’t have very many. Today, I give Spotify, well one of my exes actually, gives Spotify $10/month so he, another of his exes, and I can access more music than I have time left on this planet to consume. And do you know what I nearly exclusively listen to? Podcasts. Mostly political podcasts. Center right. Center left. NPR. And populist left. I can’t bring myself to do populist right. The 2023 equivalent to talk radio.
3. I listen to two other genres of podcasts.
The exceptions are history podcasts and music podcasts. I listen to two music podcasts: Bandsplain and 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. And like four history podcasts: Noble Blood, Behind the Bastards, Sawbones, and The Rest is History. Sometimes I’ll listen to Revolutions or Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. I was a huge fan of Synodus Horrenda but it appears to be over, at least for now.
But this post is about the Chicks’ Goodbye Earl episode of 60 Songs that Explain the 90s.
4. This song makes me cry every single time.
I don’t really know why. I don’t have a story or anything that explains it. But I was reminded of this fact as I fought back tears over and over again listening to this episode.
I started going through the back catalog of this podcast because, and I am not making this up because how could I? It’s far too weird for my creative faculties to invent. For a while Harvilla would say this phrase. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but the closest I can come is something like “Don’t look it up” or “Don’t look into it.” But it absolutely killed me. I lived for it. Why? I don’t know. Obviously, it was the inflection. Beyond that, my guess is as good as yours. And then, for some reason, he stopped saying it. And it was like when you get a song in your head and you can’t remember the exact lyrics so you have to listen to it again. So I began listening to past episodes hoping he would say it so I’d close that loop in my head and also get to experience the joy once again. Which is how I discovered a few episodes I’d missed. One of them being Goodbye Earl.
There’s something about country music, especially female country singers, that just gets me right in the feels.
Shut the front door.
Love it.
Tattoo it onto my body.
Okay, and one dude.
I am not a snob. I do not enjoy things ironically, as my friend Trevor Burrus likes to say. There’s something so unabashed, straightforward, and unashamed about country music.
As host Rob Harvilla writes, there was a moment, between the early 90s and 9/11, when women were less discriminated against in country music. A beautiful moment when you could hear women singing about feminism and intimate partner violence on country music radio stations and CMT.
I listened to Rob Harvilla play clips of those songs and talk about them, about the artists and the times. I tried not to cry and thought, I wish I could do that. I wish I could write songs that imprint on a young girl so powerfully that mere clips twenty years later brings forceful tears to her eyes.
The only thing standing between me and that dream is that I have no sense of rhythm, very little dexterity, and am, according to my lived experience and one online test, among the top third most tone deaf people who also took that test. And you’ve got to imagine people who obviously aren’t tone dear aren’t taking it.
So, alas, my opportunity to imprint on young girls… maybe I should rephrase that. My opportunity to influence the youths is pretty limited to non-music media. But it does happen. And even if I never get to write a single country hit or even get particularly good at pop culture writing, I’m very grateful for that.
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TV Tuesdays 24: 60 Songs, The Chicks Earl