Single Review – Uncountrify Me – Barry Michael
13 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Single Review – Uncountrify Me – Barry Michael
Songwriters: Corey Barker and Barry Michael
The latest release to contribute to the plague of country songs proclaiming the artist’s inherent ‘countriness’ is Barry Michael‘s ‘Uncountrify Me’. In the song, Michael warns a woman that, while she may be able to adjust some of his behavior, she won’t be able to reverse his being ‘country.’ This premise isn’t a problem in itself, but this song goes about making its point in the most clumsy and cliché-riddled way.
There are the umpteenth references to campin’, fishin’, huntin’, biscuits, sweet tea, and ridin’ in a truck. These have all already been overused to the point of meaninglessness. There are the assertions that don’t make sense. Ask me to clean up/and I will, opens the lyrics. Because country boys don’t clean up unless asked? Not in my experience. And then there is the fact that the song happily perpetuates the infuriating stereotypes about men and women found in many of these countrier-than-thou songs.
Barry Michael has elsewhere explained how he, as a city boy, had the great idea of writing a song about becoming ‘countrified’. That is a good idea. So why didn’t he? When writing about something that is a unique personal experience, why bother to trot out the same old, overused words, phrases and rhymes (rhyming ‘roots’ with ‘boots’ should have ended with Garth Brooks). It takes away any and all compelling part of his personal story. There is a good song to be written about growing up in the city but later preferring the country. This isn’t it. Tell your own story. Talk about how the sound, smell, and feel of country life is different to where you grew up and explain why you prefer it. That would be a story.
Furthermore, there is simply no need to convince us of just how country you are when you can let your music speak for itself. For the best example, see Alan Jackson‘s entire career. More recently, Craig Campbell and Blake Shelton both illustrate how, if one simply is country, there is no need to say one is country.
Liv Carter
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.
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