Southerners and Drinking: What Gives?

Ever hear a good country song about behaving? Me neither.

Alternate answer to your question - these guys are all just imitating George Jones and/or Hank Williams, and can't hold a candle to them.

Couple of things, Igs

First, it's primarily a matriarchy. Southern mothers are (historically, anyway) the leaders of the family, and that's played up a lot. They're revered for their strength in dealing with hell-raisin husbands and sons and the willingness to do whatever shit job they can find to keep things going. Currently, things aren't generally worse for them than they are for anyone else but these are ingrained honorifics.

Second, most of these songs are sort of "hardscrabble" in a way. The south has always had an economic disadvantage when compared to the northern tier. As a result, there's generally a greater degree of fatalism in them. The blues had a baby, and they named it rock and roll. Then that baby had a bastard "cousin" and you can just consider it country. "life is hard and we got it so bad and here I am rememberin the hard times and realizin I was happiest then". Sort of the same thing we all experience, but that sort of phrase will anchor a country tune while it'll get you kicked the FUCK out of a rock act.

Third, beer is just the starting course after work of an evening. I don't know about yall northern types, but when I was in bands playing bars you could count the beer drinkers on a couple of hands and a foot. Jack Daniels tends to make well-behaved men turn into complete wrecking balls sooner rather than later.

Finally, I'm convinced these songs are written for the guys to get laid. "I used to raise hell, but I'm workin on my life and makin it better and I got a good truck. Wanna fuck?". Or, in the song you're referring to..."See what sort of home I come from? Applaud my struggle from such lowly social status and come out into the parking lot and we can fuck in my nice truck."

Ah, the ring of truth, how sweet it is.

Iggy, I don't have an answer to your question, but I did have to play a country song once. I was friends with my band teacher, and she begged me to play bass for this kid in the annual talent show, since my band was playing that night anyway, I foolishly agreed. After that night, I can tell you this: Apparently in Chatahootchee, it gets hotter than hoochie coochie. God help me.

Sums it up as well as can be in my opinion. Good post, TD.

Thank you, sir. My season of playing guitar and singing for the Crystal River Boys in Branson back in the 80s finally pays off.

The northern midwest states like Wisconsin and Michigan usually fight it out for the most alcoholics per capita.

Southerners just can't hold their liquor, so they write twangy, abominable songs about it. It's like drunk dialing an ex-girlfriend for them.

What gives? There's nothing else to do down here.

To be fair, I think you may be helping to swing it to Michigan's favor by living there.

Most deep south southerners love to brag about how much they can drink. THat is why in college we always enjoyed brining them down here to New Orleans and showing them what a.) a real drink is like and b.) what it is like to try and drink with people who have been doing this since they were 10 and 11. The results were always the same, some dumb hick pukin ghis lungs out while we laughed.

The reason you hear it songs though is that whole thing of these Southerners, for lack of a better term, and their whole ideal of being good Christian folk. Then they go out and have a beer or some whiskey and then you know they are going to hell and are "badasses" who need to be straightened out. Southern Baptists have been in my experience the worst at trying to live this image. My favorites have been the ones who used to tell my friends and I we were going to hell for being catholic and drinking all the time; but come the weekend they were drunker than us at parties; but we were the bad guys.

Sorry, lots of ranting. That's what 9 years of living in Mississippi gets you (plus I have to go there this weekend; yeah fuck me).

Of course this bring up a joke we used to tell all the time: Why do they make Jim Beam/Jack Daniels bottles square? So when the baptists pull up to church it doesn't roll out from under their car seat.

And bars. There are many small towns in Wisconsin that I'm pretty sure consist of some houses, some bars, and a church. It's far more beer-oriented than the South, I'd guess, though. Not that this means Southerners get drunker, but that Wisconsinites tend to put on more weight doing it.

The South has that rich moonshine tradition, so it's not surprising they're less beer-oriented down here.

Where in MS? I grew up in Greenwood. Still go back to visit relatives a couple of times a year.

Yeah, I think most of the main points have been hit here. Forbidden by church (which most everyone goes to), yet everyone does it on the weekend. Except for me. Of course, I moved away in the 9th grade, so I was just on the cusp of that period, anyway.

I have heard multiple touring bands remark that they have never seen people drink like they drink in Wisconsin. Having been in social situations in other states, I can see that there's some truth to that. Also, on an anecdotal note, I have a cousin who lives in North Carolina whose myspace page consists almost entirely of pictures of people so drunk that they can't focus on the camera or resist flipping it off. Most of my "end of the party" pictures are of people holding red plastic cups, looking inscrutable. So I'm going to have to back Death Surge up on this one -

Fixed!

Listen more.

Why does the church forbid drinking? Didn't Jesus perform a miracle just to help people get shit-faced?

Alabama is one of the tightest American bands I've ever heard. Country rocks.

Yeah, I'm just not much of a country music fan. Johnny Cash is great, but yeah, that's all I got.

Isn't this an oxymoron?

(Insert obligatory Freebird and "Ohhh that Smell" joke here)

Yankee's talk funny.

*crickets*

All I got, sorry.

Southerners just talk a lot. They've been talking for about 150 years about the South rising agin but I haven't seen it. Unless all they've secretly stockpiled tires for all those cars sitting up on blocks in their front yards and some warm, still night are going to slap the Goodyears on and invade with a fleet of '76 El Caminos.

No, it's an ex-moron who used to think CMT=country music.

I think rock's ancestors are consistently more charming than rock itself. I'll take soul, gospel, country, ska and the blues over the entire rock and roll genre any day.

Ska came after rock'n'roll.

The South is never gonna rise again 'cos they are all too drunk to get organized.

Yeah...it's fair. That, and the "wild-eyed southern boy" stereotype is one they actually like and generally propogate even though it no longer fits with the way things really are as much as it used to.

Hey, the Irish are pretty damn drunk and they are kicking ass with an economic renaissance over there right now.

Maybe the South just doesn't have enough FUNCTIONAL alcoholics.

Not to mention kicked British ass in 1916. Let's not forget that.

A mere 500 years after the Scots did so.

Hey man, it's cool I actually love to hear other accents, Southerners however because of our relaxed drawl tend to get hammered with the "dumb Southerner" label. Granted we do sound like someone has their finger slowing the record down but it can't be helped.

Also I have to be completely honest here and say that modern country music is an abomination and shouldn't even be called Country. It's pop music with cowboy boots and hats. Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe and similar acts are more akin to what I think of when I think of "Country" music. I'm sure others may disagree but that's how I feel about it. And if you want a good laugh find a copy of David Allan Coe's "Perfect Country and Western Song."(Also referred to as "You never even called me by my name.") It's a good song but at the same time it comes nowhere near taking itself seriously. I smile every time I hear it.

You can add me to the list of Functional Irish Alcoholics or FIA if you would.
Does sound kinda redundant though.

Rap is about misogyny and crime. Country is about alcoholism and poverty. Blues is about, well, the blues. Rock and Roll? Mostly sex and drugs.

It's not that all Southerners think that getting drunk is going to send you to hell. It's that in a lower socio-economic setting, being a drunk gets you fired, and then you can't afford the payments on your trailer, and then you, your wife, your dog, and your momma are homeless. And not supporting your family means you go to hell.

Part of your issue is that you're taking CMT as being country music. A lot of that is overproduced trite rockabilly crap.

And as with any genre, there is a lot of variety. Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors, Conway Twitty's That's My Job...there are a lot of different themes just like any genre.

Yeah? Well...you're partially right. As a Catholic, you have a good grasp on guilt. Thing is, Catholics aren't held to it. You can go to a box, talk to the guy behind the screen and it's cool. Baptists....shit....you hold that guilt. And you get REMINDED of that guilt. All the time. The pastor looks at you. The ladies in the third pew whisper about your truck being parked in front of the package liquor store. Your girlfriend/wife fields the sympathetic little smiles aimed at her. And you got NOTHING you can do to relieve the guilt outside of running into a burning building to save a child. Your lack of perfection equals a lack of adequacy. When the pastor SLAMS the pulpit and cries out "The glory of the LORD deMANDS our first fruit, our perfect sacrifice. And it is encumbent upon us all to STRAIGHTEN OUT OUR FILTHY LIVES to prove ourselves a worthy and faithful sacrifice to Gaaawd." you know there's several eyes on you...whether heads are turned or not.

You don't even have to believe in the religion to feel the effects, brother. It's in the air and words and actions of everyone in the area. And it doesn't mean squat, and you try to tell yourself that but you remember the stories from childhood Sunday School class and you know you don't measure up. And the only hope you had was throw yourself on the mercy of the Holy Court.

If you haven't grown up with it, I can't express to you how encompassing and cruel and permanent most of our Southern churches are. Right now...as I type this...I'm rendering a video for broadcast in five days. In it, my boss is telling his congregation and all of the folks listening on radio (we own an FM station in the area) and watching on television (we broadcast on satellite around the world) that if you don't speak in tongues, you can't draw anyone to Jesus. And if you can't draw someone to salvation, then you're of no use to God.

Believe me, Igs, I can appreciate the amount of heat you Catholics can exert on each other. But ask yourself if those that are of your faith generally subvert EVERYTHING ELSE in their life in service to that faith. That's the expectation for our Southern brothers...or, at least, that's what it used to be. I'm hopeful that things aren't nearly as bad these days but since I work in Christian broadcasting it's hard for me to tell. I know that it used to be fire and brimstone and bloodchilling pronouncements of shit like "You can't earn your way to Heaven, but if you don't do Good Works God will spit you out of his mouth"

Faced with that...a lost weekend with Jack or Johnny seems pretty mellow to me.

I can totally relate to the "Southern stereotype" because I see it every day...in some cases it isn't a stereotype but an overly proud ignorant way of life. I recently moved from San Antonio to Oklahoma and it still amazes me how many bad country songs are walking and talking around here.

And you can never consider any of the crap coming out of Nashville these days "country". I always refer to it as "boy bands with cowboy hats". Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings would kick all of their asses.

To be fair, we got most of our country back after that. The Scots are stil part of the UK and their loudest forms of dissent are circulating a more "Scottish" variation of the pound note, which I think is kind of ridiculous, and scrawling "End London Rule" on an alley wall here and there.