Come on, UPS

I need those new Dr. Seuss books to get here yesterday. My son loves him some Seuss, to the point that even at 10 months old, he's already decided that Green Eggs and Ham is much better than Hop on Pop. And I've never stopped loving the Doc, so I love reading those books to him. But I made a mistake and only bought those two plus Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? Which is not enough Seuss to keep the parents and Mama Dunn from burning out reading the books we have. So I hit up Amazon.com for Fox in Socks, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! and The Cat in the Hat. I'm fully prepared for his turning up his nose at all three, but a daddy's got to try.

Yesterday, company called, and he got played with the company until he got tired and grumpy. Off to the swing for a long nap he went. He usually wakes up the AntiDaddy--happy, smiling, a regular earth-bound cherub. (I'm not what you'd call a real morning person, and I don't suffer morning people very well. Neither did Solomon.) But this nap evidently ended right when he was dreaming he was about to pop the top on a jar of peaches and other assorted fruit, because when he opened his eyes, he went straight to caterwauling. Being the hip dad I am, I picked him up and pointed him at the television, where the NASCAR Texas race was on. (Sporting events are about the only thing you can watch with the sound off while baby sleeps.) Within seconds, he had stopped crying and was pointing at the screen, saying, "Cah, cah." Plus, I think I heard him say "Took the air off his spoiler" and "Needs some wedge to keep from gittin' squirrelly in turn two," but I'm not sure.

This weekend, I reviewed the Neko Case concert, which took place at WorkPlay, a supremely nice venue here in Birmingham. One of the brains behind WorkPlay is original MTV VJ and Birmingham native Alan Hunter, and every time I think of him, I remember when knowing that the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video played on MTV meant you were a real trivia connoisseur. Nowadays, any young whippersnapper can Google up a world of facts in a nanosecond, all while using their Facespace and Mybook and Twister or whatever you call all that newfangled stuff.

Case, as I said in my review, sings a kind of "country noir," which makes as much sense as any of the other tags, like "alt.country" or "Americana." The turnout was good, but the total gate from the night is probably less than Carrie Underwood spends per day on eyeliner. Rascall Flatts getts morre monney (honestly, the two T's in their name makes me yurp on my keyboard) in spiked-hair royalties than Case will make all year.

That's been on my mind because I made the mistake of watching a little bit of the Academy of Country Music Awards last night. I've been listening to country since my mother played eight-tracks of George Jones and Johnny Cash while driving me to my grandmother's for daycare. I know that country, like all popular music, is always evolving. The overly produced "Nashville Sound" of Jim Reeves and Eddie Albert didn't have much in common with Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. But long about the eighties, country began rocketing off on a non-country tangent that only seems to get more severe every year. I caught Sugarland's performance of some song (don't know, don't care, ain't gonna Google), and it sounded like the second coming of Taylor Dayne. It was as country as Tommy Tune. For the longest time, country was pop with a twang, but now it seems that the biggest stars have even dispensed with that pretense and gone twang-free. Not only did Carrie Underwood look like a crimson Jabba the Hutt in that dress, but her song belonged back on "American Idol," not a country music award show.

Not only has country lost its twang, but it's lost its heart. If the mantra in creative writing is "show, don't tell," the mantra of modern country is "tell, don't show." According to Billboard, the number one country song is Darius Rucker's "It Won't Be Like This For Long." Here's a link to the lyrics. There's a story there, of course, but it's related in a linear fashion. You feel sad, you say "I'm sad."

The number two country song is Taylor Swift's "White Horse," which starts out thusly:

Say you're sorry
That face of an angel comes out
Just when you need it to
As I pace back and forth all this time
'Cause I honestly believed in you

That's not a country song, it's a 13-year-old girl's Facebook post. I spontaneously sprouted unicorns and rainbows just reading it.

Contrast those songs with, say, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,
He sounds too blue to fly.

Boom! You're depressed. You feel this guy's pain. You know how he feels, and you're ready to commiserate with him, because that imagery puts you in his place, and we've all been in that place.

Here's George Jones' "She Thinks I Still Care."

Just because I asked a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I rang her number by mistake today
She thinks I still care.

Do you get the feeling he's missing his woman? Do you not identify with lost love, pain, and denial? In four lines, he's made you ready to take off work to keep the poor guy company.

Just one more. Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried."

The first thing I remember knowing,
Was a lonesome whistle blowing,
And a young'un's dream of growing up to ride.

You'd never ridden a freight train before, had you?

On a freight train leaving town,
Not knowing where I'm bound,
No one could change my mind but Mama tried.

And now you're not only on a freight train, but you're traveling with a man who's down because he's done some wrong, even though he was raised right by his poor, long-suffering mother. (NB: If you can listen to "Mama Tried" without crying, you are dead. Please report to the nearest cemetery for interment.)

I'm picking and choosing my examples, of course, and generalizing to boot. But I do think it's safe to say that the songs being lauded today lack the lyrical oomph they used to have.

Now, the rescue: There's good country out there, and I can guide you to it, if you're interested. In no particular order, I'm high on Wrinkle Neck Mules, Reckless Kelly, Robert Earl Keen, Backsliders and Star Room Boys (both now defunct, sadly), Chris Knight (not the one who played Peter Brady), Dwight Yoakam, Webb Wilder (the last of the full-grown men, and he's got a new album coming out!), Southern Culture on the Skids, and Dan Baird (more rock than country, but everything's twang-tinged, and songs like "Julie and Lucky," "Hit Me Like a Train," "Dixie Beauxderaunt," and of course "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" throb with a country heart. Plus, his "Cumberland River" is a slap in Nashville's face). That's just a start. There's plenty more out there. You just won't find much of it touring in a 12-semi entourage, or winning many industry awards. As Webb himself put it, "There's always an Econoline rollin' toward a gig somewhere."

Not that I want to turn this into a music blog, but here's Baird's "Cumberland River" to close out this music rant. Happy Mondays to you.