Carrie Underwood recently won a Grammy for her song about baptism and keeping the faith, “Something in the Water”, solidifying country music’s relationship with Christianity even more. Underwood often sings about her faith: her debut single was “Jesus Take the Wheel”, which was another huge hit with audiences. She is a prime example of a country music star that rose from humble beginnings to fame, albeit through American Idol, but has kept her morals about her. She often cites her religion and devotion to God in her interviews and songs.
Carrie Underwood
But why are country music and Christianity so tied together? I think it is because of the genre’s connection to the South, which is the Bible Belt of America: an area where religion is deeply engrained in many aspects of life. Country music markets itself as being the music of the people, and most Americans, particularly in the South, are religious, so this music speaks to them. Another reason is that country artists are usually normal people who are authentic, and fame doesn’t really change them a lot. So if they were just southern religious people before having hit songs, then they still will be once they are famous. Unlike artists like Katy Perry, who were raised religious but shed that part of her life in her songs, artists like Carrie Underwood continue to integrate her faith into her multiplatinum songs to show her fans she is still the same Oklahoma girl that won American Idol.
Some country songs deal with faith directly, while others sing about faith in more subtle ways. They sing about the values of Christianity, like when The Band Perry sings in “Better Dig Two” about a girl fully committing herself to her husband by saying she’ll only wear white on her wedding day to him. Other artists sing about their wives of many years, like Brad Paisley’s “Then” exemplifying a healthy marriage, songs that are a far cry from other genres, which have songs about promiscuity and adultery. This way of putting religion in songs is definitely more common because sometimes audiences don’t like songs with strong religious references, to which Carrie responds “if you don’t like it, change the channel.”
Country music is by no means gospel or even music that would fit in the Christian genre of music, but in many songs there are religious themes due to the close spiritual ties between the genre and the church. Many artists glorify God overtly in their songs, such as Rascal Flatts with “Bless the Broken Road” and Big & Rich with “That’s Why I Pray”, while others sing about exemplifying His teachings in songs. Due to country’s roots in the south, it and religion are definitely linked.
Being from a suburb of Atlanta country music is popular but Honky Tonk is not a thing. Two stepping is something that is well known from the rap song “2 Step” by DJ UNK. So this last weekend I ventured up to Dallas/Fort Worth and got to experience the world’s largest Honky Tonk, Billy Bob’s Texas. It was nothing like I could have ever imagined. The place was huge and full of people. When we first got there we went right into the bull-riding arena. The arena was just buzzing with excitement. Only two of the riders made it to the full eight seconds, however it was so thrilling to watch. The atmosphere that the arena brought was crazy. When the bull-riding was finished we moved to the dance floor to people watch. And let me just say Billy Bob’s attracts all different types of people. From old people to young people, all different types of ethnic groups, couples to just groups of friends, it was a very good people-watching scene. Some couples were such good dancers my friends and me were in awe of them, while others were just awkward and uncomfortable to watch. The good ones would work the whole floor doing dips and spins. Although at one point things got really weird, when a hired dance company called The House of Horrors, came on stage to perform a zombie version of a “Fifty Shade of Grey” dance. They were clearly promoting the release of the new movie this weekend but the dance was awful, uncomfortable to watch, and felt very out of place.
We did not stay for her whole performance because we also wanted to walk around the stockyards. It was so different from what I had expected, because we had been in downtown Fort Worth for dinner so when we arrived in the stockyards it was nothing I could have imagined. I felt like I had stepped into a small old country town and was not still in one of the biggest cities in Texas. Obviously, it was late at night at this point so we window shopped at the closed stores and peeked into the other bars to get a feel for what they were like. They all seemed very similar with people dressed to the nines in their boots, belt buckles, and cowboy hats. It was so interesting because even though everyone was dressed similarly there still were a wide variety of people everywhere. We left the stockyards and went to explore West 7th Street in downtown which is suppose to be the college area, and it was a drastic change as to where we had just been.