Oh No She Didn't

Two words strike fear into my country music loving heart: Carrie. Underwood.

That's right. She is the personification of everything I don't want country music to be. Her song "Before He Cheats" was promising, but then she sucked it all back down into the sugary sweet sappiness that is her music.

One of my favorite David Allen Coe songs mentions how to write the perfect country western song, but you need to have momma, or trains, or trucks, or prison or gettin' drunk in it. He then went on to sing a verse about being drunk the day his momma got out of prison, how he went to pick her up in the rain, driving his pick up truck, but she got run over by a train.

Now if that ain't country....
Carrie Underwood's first song had what I'd like to say is the perfect makings of a number one hit for the sheeple. "Jesus Take the Wheel" mentions momma and daddy, a baby, poor decisions, and that hit maker, Jesus. As soon as I heard the first verse of that gag inducing song, I thought, crap. She's got a hit. People are going to love this.

And they did. And it was. And now she has done something that goes beyond all belief. She has gone and remade the Randy Travis hit, "I Told You So."

Why? Why would she take one of the greatest songs of all time by a country singer who was the first country music act in history to achieve multi-platinum status, and try to sing it? She has only made it truly cringe worthy. I can't even listen to it.

And don't tell me it's a form of flattery. No. Randy Travis can be emulated by artists covering his songs in about 75 years....when no one can remember the shivers they got the first time they heard him sing. He helped bring back a vintage sound to country music that was much missed, and he paved the ways for guys like Alan Jackson to come along.

In other words, Randy Travis is freaking awesome.
All though, in my research, I did find out that Randy Travis gave Carrie her invitation to the Grand Ole Opry and said she did a better job than he did singing "I Told You So." Huh. Well, to each his own I guess.

Next thing we know, Carrie Underwood will be singing "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" or "Ring of Fire" or worse, "Hello Darling." Some things in country music should be sacred and never messed with.

Unless it's Kelly Pickler covering a song. She's all right.