Aaron Lewis “Country Boy”
He’s a real Vermonter.
When I went to college, the Green Mountain State was not blue, but red. Fiercely independent people eking out a living on rocky land in bad weather. Before the Internet, before cable TV, Vermont might not have been as far off the grid as Montana, but the locals never got in their cars and drove to Boston or New York City, they liked it just fine at home.
Now I’m not gonna tell you I’m down with Aaron Lewis’s politics. The more I watch this video and research this song on the Web the more scared I become. I just wish everybody singing these songs and listening to them got a chance to travel the world, and see that as great as the U.S.A. is it’s not so bad in Europe, not so bad in the rest of the world. We’ve got it pretty good, but we ain’t got all the answers.
And guns scare me.
Because I know if I had one in the house I would have committed suicide by now. Or shot some friend who knocked on my door unexpectedly.
And hearing the song the lyrics did not completely sink in. Only snippets. Like the bit about the Sunset Marquis. But watching the video…I’ve got to ask are these people really not interested in helping their brothers? Poverty was rampant in Vermont in the seventies. I’d like to believe the government can provide a safety net. And if that requires me to pay a bit more in taxes, I’m down with that. Because every time I pass a homeless guy near the VA I wonder what happened to him. At least the weather’s good in Santa Monica, but even if so many of the homeless are mentally ill, can’t we give them treatment?
I don’t want to go all political on you.
Except to say as freaked-out as I am by this song’s politics, I love it.
It’s hard to explain what music was like before video. When we watched the vinyl spin ’round, when we lay back on our beds and let the music wash over us. Music was not like television. It spoke to your mind, not your eyes, and when done right it went straight to your heart.
Once upon a time "Midnight Rider" was brand new. All those Skynyrd songs too. Like "Saturday Night Special" and "Gimme Back My Bullets". I’m not so sure about the politics of the Southern rockers, then again, Phil Walden and the Allman Brothers put Jimmy Carter into office. Who’s the best ex-President we’ve ever had.
Oh here we go again. You want to stop the conversation and talk about Ronald Reagan. How did we ever get so divided?
So I’m cruising up 20th Street. For the uninitiated, that takes you by the old Sony building, before Rick Rubin decided a shrinking label needed an I.M. Pei edifice in Beverly Hills. Music is now virtual. We may not even need offices. Maybe everybody works at home. Hell, A&R is done on the computer.
And the sun is setting and Howard Stern is on commercial and I push the button to the Nashville channel. And I hear this:
Do you know that live version of "Outside"? From the "Family Values" album? When Fred Durst says Aaron Lewis is the "real fucking deal"?
Just listen to him. Whew! This ain’t no Britney Spears, you hear all the pain, all the emotion that music conveys so uniquely. I love Kraftwerk, but today’s machine music is sans emotion, no wonder it doesn’t connect.
But "Country Boy" does. Because it’s the same guy, Aaron Lewis, singing.
Staind broke through. Sold five million copies of that album with "It’s Been Awhile". Listen to that track today. It’s still haunting, it’s still riveting.
And there’s that other great cut on "Break The Cycle", "Epiphany". "Country Boy" is cut from the same cloth.
I hate Staind’s hard rock. There, I said it. But I LOVE their ballads! They’re lullabies for those of us with smudges on our souls. A salve for the imperfect.
Now I grew up down an old dirt road in a town you wouldn’t know
My pops picked up the place up for fifteen hundred bucks back in 1964
The Wikipedia says Aaron Lewis grew up in Rutland. Which is a place you drive through, nobody from down south stops there, they motor straight to Killington. Sure, there’s a main drag, but you’ve got to leave the highway to get to it. Rutland is for locals. And forty five years ago you could buy land for next to nothing, because that’s what it was worth.
My grandfather was a drinker
Back in the day he put ’em down
But a war is known to change a man, and the whiskey’s known to change a man
That’s not me
I rarely drink from the bottle
But I’ll smoke a little weed
I got high on dope before I ever got drunk. That’s how it was back in the day. Alcohol was for the older generation. We were expanding our minds.
Now it’s been twelve years since I sold my soul to the devil in L.A.
He said sign your name here on the dotted line and your songs they all will play
We set up shop on Sunset
He put me up at the Marquis
That’s the Sunset Marquis. Zeppelin might have stayed at the Riot House, the hipsters may still stay at the Chateau Marmont, but since the eighties the rock and roll hotel of choice has been the Sunset Marquis. Want to see your hard rock heroes? Don’t hang out at the Rainbow, go to the Sunset Marquis.
He said change your style, whiten your smile, you could lose a couple of pounds
If you want to live this life you better lose that wife
Do you need your friends around?
I said no that’s not me
‘Cause biggest things in life are your friends and family
Whew! If you don’t think the company doesn’t want to change you, you’ve never been signed. Artistic autonomy went out with the seventies. The man knows better.
But when you’re done, when you’re over, when you’re looking at the four walls broke and busted, your friends are the only ones who’ll get you through.
And I like my jeans and my old t-shirts and a couple extra pounds never really hurt
‘Cause a country boy is all I’ll ever be.
Look at the video. There’s no stylist involved.
Doesn’t it look like fun? Hanging in the studio? Isn’t that where we all wanted to be?
Now just before "Country Boy" I heard that ridiculous Keith Urban song "Put You In A Song". Huh? That’s not country, that’s commerce.
If you don’t think Aaron Lewis is this song watch this clip, the acoustic version:
No drum machine, no backup singers, nobody behind the curtain helping. He’s enough.
It’s a cheap shot to go country. Put on a flannel shirt, mix in a fiddle and you’re all Nashville.
But country ain’t Nashville, not today.
The old country was dangerous, like those townies you used to run into if you went down the wrong road in the Green Mountain State. They wanted to be left alone. They could survive just fine without you.
All those hard-working truck drivers don’t need Brad Paisley, they don’t need fakers in hats. They need someone speaking the truth.
Now Clive Davis can say it takes too long to get to the change, that Aaron needs a new chorus. But if you fix it, you fuck it up. Great art is channeled, it’s not an intellectual process, it’s purely organic. All those songwriting hacks in "Music City" are creating with their heads, not their hearts.
Nothing is as powerful as a performer singing his own story.
If you’re not touched by Aaron Lewis’s "Country Boy" you grew up in the city with no sympathy for anybody different. You look down at the crackers, you wonder why they hate you?
But people are people.
I’m sure if I sat down with Aaron Lewis I could find commonality. Because it’s not about politics, but humanity. Life’s a struggle. But it’s denied on sitcoms, movies are all special effects and so are the records, so when you hear something real you cannot turn it off.
I cannot turn off Aaron Lewis’s "Country Boy".
