Single Review: ‘Corn Star’ – Craig Morgan

12 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Single Review: ‘Corn Star’ – Craig Morgan

The defendants Songwriters: Shane Minor, Jeffrey Steele

I have a love/hate relationship with songs written by Jeffrey Steele. He has his name on some of the most outstanding tracks, but is also responsible for some of the worst. Hopefully, I will never have to hear anything worse than ‘Corn Star,’ the new single for Craig Morgan.

I don’t care that the production actually sounds pretty good. I don’t care that Morgan’s vocal performance does too. All of what might be good about this is blown away by the awful, sexist lyrics. This is sadly not a rarity at country radio – other recent offenders are Luke Bryan‘s ‘Country Girl’ and Jason Aldean‘s ‘My Kinda Party’ – but when it is as bad as this, it needs to be pointed out and loudly objected to every single time. There is nothing wrong with appreciating beautiful women, as long as they are also allowed to be people and not just body parts to be leered at.

There are only two reasons for producing a sleazy lyric like this. Either they genuinely believe the underlying message, which makes them misogynists, or, they don’t really, but are just hoping for a paycheck by appealing to the demographic that does, which makes them disingenuous and disrespectful of women.

The defense will no doubt come in the form of ‘it’s just a bit of fun.’ No, it’s not. Not to women who have to fight every day of their lives to be evaluated on anything other than how they look. The song has the woman described as the ‘blue ribbon winner’ at the county fair. What wins blue ribbons? Livestock. But no disrespect meant, right?

Here’s the thing: intent doesn’t matter. It simply does not matter if Shane Minor and Steele were ‘just kidding’, because the message contained in the lyrics, that it’s OK to treat women as objects, remains the same. Entertainers have actually lost their careers over racist comments which were “just a joke.” It’s about time that this flimsy excuse also stops being accepted to defend sexism.

The verses are bad, with references to stripping and Playboy magazine, but the chorus is inexcusable.

They cut a four lane highway
Right through her pasture
Blamed it on progress
And movin’ traffic faster
But everybody knows the only
Reason for the road was to see her
Jug-a-luggin’ on the top of that tractor
She’s a corn star

“See her jug-a-luggin'”?!

I want to see this fail at radio as that would mean there is still hope. The writers, Morgan for choosing to record this, the record label who went along with it, you should all be ashamed of being associated with this.

 

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

Latest posts by Liv Carter (see all)