Category: Music

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz announced this week (from Politico):

In an interview Tuesday on “CBS This Morning,” the Texas senator told his TV hosts that he “grew up listening to classic rock” but that that soon changed.

“My music taste changed on 9/11,” Cruz said.

“I actually intellectually find this very curious, but on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded,” he said. “And country music, collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.” …

Cruz did not mention any specific country music that resonated with him or which rock artists did not respond well to the terror attacks.

“I had an emotional reaction that said, ‘These are my people,’” Cruz said. “So ever since 2001, I listen to country music.”

Salon has a predictable take:

But it’s interesting nonetheless that Cruz now considers himself a country fan because country music is different than it used to be. And you can trace the change to right about that time. It has traditionally valued “authenticity” giving high praise to those who know how to keep their country real. It’s debatable as to how sincere that commitment has been but the musicians and the fans used to truly believe in the small town ethos, religion and patriotism which have always been fundamental to the genre.

There is a rebellious streak as well, some of it coming from an unlikely source for such a traditional form: women. Back in the 1960s when southern culture was resisting the changes wrought by the counter culture, singers like Loretta Lynn sang about being freed from non-stop pregnancies by the invention of the pill and Jeannie C. Reilly “socked it to” the uptight conservative hypocrites of the Harper Valley PTA. Ted Cruz is probably too young to even know about those songs, but I think we can be sure he wouldn’t approve of them even today. They displayed a shocking irreverence toward family values.

But if the transformed Cruz is a fan of the modern stuff it’s a good bet that a conservative fellow like him (albeit one who once refused to associate with anyone who didn’t go to an Ivy League college) is into what they call “bro-country.” (The dudes who sing those songs like to think of themselves as “outlaws” but their juvenile commercial tropes bear as much resemblance to the original country outlaws like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash as they do to Mozart and Beethoven.) …

When country loving social conservatives like Cruz and Huckabee complain about violent rap lyrics or get upset about the sexual impropriety of pop music they either aren’t listening to modern country or they’re unaware that the traditional values many of “their people” are celebrating in song these days aren’t about family, God and and the red, white and blue. They’re about crude, drunken jerks treating women like whores. I suspect that’s not the image to which Senator Cruz was trying to relate when he confessed to converting to country at the age of 31.

This whole thing is silly, obviously. Ted Cruz’s musical tastes are only interesting to the extent they make him seem like a regular guy. But come on — nobody changes what music they like for political reasons. That pandering comment is so awkward and calculated it makes him sound like an automaton.  In fact, it’s very hard to believe that Ted Cruz has any interest in music at all. The image that comes to mind when you see him isn’t some guy rocking out to the Stones or singing along to “The Angry American.” It’s Richard Nixon walking on the beach in his black socks and wing tips.

In addition to the obligatory slam of “bro-country,” the Salon writer threw in an obligatory mention of the Dixie Chicks, who announced in France that as Texans they were ashamed of George W. Bush. Which ended their careers in the country genre (and really as relevant music acts) not because they dissed Bush, but because they dissed all their soon-to-be-former country fans who voted for Bush.

In addition to ignoring rock music’s 9/11 responses such as Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” Neil Young’s “Let’s Roll” and the U2 Super Bowl show, Cruz’s statement comes off as inauthentic pandering. (I don’t support Cruz for president because I support no one either now or formerly in Congress. Governors should be the only people allowed to run for president for the foreseeable future.) There are certainly artists who write and perform music to express their political beliefs, whether or not they should. I doubt that many music fans listen to music based on adherence to their own political worldview. I haven’t been listening to more country based on anything other than how it sounds.