So I tend to take in all my country music from radio listening and sadly the radio stations in Toronto are limited and I muuuuch prefer the stations in the US (100.3 in Houston miss U!!) but yesterday KX96 introduced me to this song and I fell for it. There’s been other Luke Bryan hits I’ve enjoyed, but I just can’t get over the fact that he has almost the exact same name as a friend of mine.

Anyway, choice lyrics from I Don’t Want This Night to End are:

“You got your hands up,
You’re rocking in my truck.
You got the radio on,
You’re singing every song.”

(If you’ve ever seen me dance you know why.)

So in all honesty, my interest in Blake Shelton started was because he was a coach on The Voice and the only country music coach at that—and also he’s Miranda Lambert’s man! However, I could never get into his music. He tweets like a badass, talks with the rougest, sexiest drawl, but his songs were always so saccharin.

And yet.

This one I like. I’d change a few of the lyrics (swap out “cosmo” for “gin martini”, say) but shessh, if he wants to push his head up against mine at a bar, I’m into it.

So I’ve started watching SNL reruns on MuchMoreMusic every night, right now it’s episodes from 2004 that I vaguely remember watching in a haze during my third year of university, but anyway, The Dixie Chicks were the guests tonight and I’d never heard this song—Travelin’ Soldier—before and it’s AMAZING. Just enough twang but with the political message the Dixie Chicks are known for. Like a One Tin Soldier for our generation. (That song, btw, will forever make me tear up. I’ve clearly inherited my mother’s 1970’s sentiments/emotions about all things war related…)

It’s weird when a song seems SO autobiographical (see: history of Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman’s relationship) and then you find out that someone other than the singer wrote it and he makes no claims to it being real life. (Er, do I sound naive?)

Anyway, Without You is romantic and slow and it makes me happy. If you were in middle school in the late 90s you’ll probably like it because it fits right in with all the other popular slow dance songs from that era.

Guys, sorry! I missed this—Elvis Presley’s birthday!—yesterday but anyway, there’ll be a whole bunch of Elvis posted this week in celebration.

Mystery Train is the first song on the two disc compilation of Elvis songs that my mom and I listened to many times over on our trip from Toronto to Houston in 2010. It reminds me of a detour we took while trying to (ironically) find the “Museum” of Creation in Kentucky. (We did not find it, but Elvis played on!)

Bridge over the Tennessee River along the Natchez Trace Parkway. (Near Cherokee, Alabama, October 2010)

**campy country song alert!**

Toby Keith’s Red Solo Cup was on the radio in Houston at least three times a day over Christmas and my parents were shocked that it hadn’t made its way to Canada. (I should note, my dad doesn’t even like country music but lets me keep the radio tuned to 100.3 FM whenever I visit :) Anyway, they have a point: how can a song all about red solo drinking cups NOT be cross-border popular? (In dorm rooms, at the very least??) Does the fact that it’s by Toby Keith and considered “country” keep it from being played on Canadian radio? Please confirm.

Something almost East Coast about this house in New Orleans, eh? (December 2010)

My real appreciation for As She’s Walking Away started when I saw the Zac Brown Band perform it at the CMAs and they looked so… hipster? (wrong word, but you know what I mean) compared to all the other country stars. But then Alan Jackson came in to sing and suddenly it seemed like one of those country music variety shows my grandparents used to watch, and how can you hate that?

Nashville, Tennessee. (October 2010)

Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, LA (December 2010)

A fan of Friday Night Lights? Then you’ll be into this Taylor Swift video because MATT SARACEN is the love interest! (And, Ours is a cute upbeat ramble of a song.)

Lifelong friends, this tree trunk and sidewalk are in New Orleans. (December 2010)

Love for the Country Strong soundtrack continues. Me & Tennessee is the closing credits song and I think it got totally overlooked because Gwyneth Paltrow sings with Tim McGraw on it and for some reason everyone hates when she sings. But! But: it’s a salty little song, I enjoy when she chimes in, and Tim McGraw kinda sing-begs in it, which is hot. Also, this song was actually written by Chris Martin and, sorry, but I think that’s a cute scenario to imagine.

Lexington, Kentucky. (October 2010)