The System Resisted

There is a theme which reappears in American commercial country music, and that is of a man, rarely a woman, the song's singer-narrator, who aspires or is somehow brought to a high class society, or a social class higher than his own, does not fit, does not like it, and returns to his low class redneck roots, not altogether unhappy about  having done so.

Without having to look anything up, I recall three such hit songs from the 1980s or 90s: Randy Travis' Better Class of Losers, where the singer, temporarily stuck in a city high-rise penthouse suite, expresses a desire to return to friends who don't pay their bills on home computers (aha, so it had to be the 1990s then!), who buy their coffee beans already ground,  and don't think it's disgraceful to drink three dollar wines, yes, the better class of losers, Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places, the title being self-explanatory, and Travis Tritt's Country Club, where the singer, following a woman he's just met,  attempts to enter a members-only country club, saying that he too is a member of a country club, why, country music is what he loves,  drives an old Ford pickup truck, does his drinking from a Dixie cup, and plays a mean game of pool at any roadside honky tonk.

From general we move on to specific, or personal.  Once upon a time, a good while ago,  I too once attempted to reinvent myself, as the process is sometimes called, and happens often in the Western states  of America, why it's an old tradition, if not even a cliche, as I attempted to enter a high society of theater, symphony and opera attendance, and, needless to say,  as in all those country songs, a woman was involved however marginally,  but since it all happened somewhat to the East of the Western states of America, where such self-reinventions don't easily happen, are not expected or welcomed, I failed, was rejected, the system resisted, why, I've no idea, perhaps it was a lack of a Hahvahd degree on my resume, perhaps it was my blue jeans and the haircut, or the way I held a knife and fork, anyway, in the end I was left with a souvenir of an elegant pair of Italian black leather shoes that I've never worn and will never  wear until some funeral.  Whose funeral, you ask?  My own, of course.

Here anyway is a fine country song by a female singer Ashton Shepherd who declines an invitation to move to the city: More Cows Than People:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pqfdo4Il0