The same ol’ stereotype.
By now everybody’s heard the old joke about what happens when you play a country song backwards: You get your dog back, your wife back and your truck back.
It’s obviously just mocking the stereotype from non-country fans that all country songs are just sad heartbreakers about some guy’s wife leaving them, which of course couldn’t be further from the truth (although a lot of the greatest country songs are).
Well apparently Secretary of State Marco Rubio is one of those who feels the same way about country music. During a recent interview with Katie Miller on her podcast, Rubio and his wife Jeanette discussed their taste in music – and it turns out they don’t always see eye to eye.
Surprisingly, Rubio says that he’s an EDM fan, and even cites a remix of the Johnny Cash classic “Ring of Fire” as a song he’s currently enjoying:
“I love a lot of electronic music because it fuses classical increasingly. It does country music. So I like a lot of the remixes of like songs that you’ve heard over the p like there’s this EDM mix of Ring of Fire which is really good. So I like that stuff.”
Rubio says that he has a wide taste in music – except for one genre, and I bet you can guess which one that is:
“I listen to a little bit of everything except for – I don’t hate it, okay? I’m not against it. I’m not anti-country music, but that’s not my thing. She loves it. I think it’s just very sad. Most of the songs are about somebody whose wife and dog left them.”
Come on Marco, you just need us to help you find the good stuff.
Jeanette, though, is a fan of country music – and quickly set Rubio straight when he started bashing country music:
“That’s not true. You need to listen to Morgan Wallen and others because that’s not true.”
I mean, we can probably find somebody better than Morgan Wallen, but I guess that’s a good entry point considering he’s the most popular country artist in the world right now.
The Secretary of State, though, is more of a fan of rap, going on to discuss his love for Tupac and calling him one of the greatest rappers of all time:
“I mean just from a artistic standpoint and obviously he would never live long enough to know what he would have turned into, but Tupac was very, very talented at that. … I thought he was very talented person primarily because I think he was a narrator, more than anything else, of a certain point of view and lifestyle and upbringing and worldview. So, I think of all time he’s probably my favorite.”
(I agree with him on that. Tupac was the GOAT).
Of course there are a lot of great country artists who are also incredible narrators of their own lifestyles and worldviews. Guys like Tyler Childers and Charles Wesley Godwin come to mind with their narrations of Appalachia, and Texas country is full of artists who releasing music dedicated to the Lone Star State. And that’s not even to mention the legends like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, John Prine, and so many more.
Let us help you, Marco. We can introduce you to the good stuff that will change your mind about country music.
