Music Sunday: The Trace Adkins Birthday Edition

It's Music Sunday once again, and for the first time, the post I had planned on doing is not going to happen because I couldn't find appropriate videos on YouTube to share with you all. I'll keep looking, and that might happen sometime in the future, but for today I'm going to do a quick change of direction, and venture off into country music, which I haven't delved into to much here in the past.

It actually took me years to get over my aversion to country music, and I'm still picky about the country I listen to (a statement which you may well laugh at after this post), but I like it, or some of it, much more than I used to. But, since a quick look around the Interwebs showed me that today is Trace Adkins' 50th birthday, I thought I'd share a few of his songs that I like a lot.

First off is "Just Fishin'", which I suppose I like so much because it reminds me of my childhood and my relationship with my father. The fishing was off the pier at the beach rather than on a riverbank, but it took me a long time, into adulthood, to realize that our fishing expeditions more than just fishing trips, but a bonding experience that shaped my life and my attitudes in many ways:



"You're Gonna Miss This" is another song that speaks to me, not in specific terms but in the general sense that I can identify with looking back and wishing that I had paid attention more, been in the moment more, and not been so damned anxious to grow up:



Adkins' songs are not all introspective, however. Thank goodness. There's this one, which I love in spite of myself, "Ladies Love Country Boys", which is just a fun song and a fun video:



And then there's "I Got My Game On", which is over-the-top silly, probably politically incorrect, but also very funny. My theory is that what makes this video a gem is the fact that the poor guy does everything wrong and still ends up with the girl, which is more true-to-life than the path to success with women that the "Dr. Love" character that Adkins plays in the video is selling.



Now, from some of the interviews I've seen with Adkins, I suspect that he and I would not see eye-to-eye on a lot of topics. But I've always made it a practice not to throw an artist's work out with the bathwater of their personal shortcomings or political or social beliefs. It would be a boring world if everyone held the same beliefs, and I'm not interested in limiting my viewing and listening to artists I know I would agree with all the time. I mean, I thought it was stupid back in the 60s when people wouldn't go see Jane Fonda movies because they didn't agree with her political stances, or wouldn't go to John Wayne movies because they didn't like his attitudes. I would be a hypocrite if I took the attitude that I wouldn't listen to and enjoy someone's music just because I'm not sure I would like their politics.

It really shouldn't even be a question.