I’m something of a connoisseur of country music. I love it all, from the hauntingly beautiful (George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today“) to the tragically hilarious (Toby Keith’s “Get out of your Clothes [or Get out of my Car]”), but I can’t help but feel like the genre is getting a bit sloppy.

You see, when I’m driving around from story to story during the day, I rely on the radio to keep me entertained. I’ve previously blogged about how upset listeners get when they find out I’m not listening to WBAP in the news car. I do tune in sometimes, usually at the top and bottom of the hour to hear the newscasts I’m filing stories for. There’s something about the sound of my own voice that makes me feel secure.

So, I rely on the country and classic rock stations to keep me entertained, and I’m prepared to make the following assertion:

Many of today’s country artists are phoning it in.

Examples:

1.) Country Girl, Luke Bryan

Consider the chorus:

Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees
Shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek
For the crickets and the critters and the squirrels
Shake it to the moon, shake it for me girl

First of all, I don’t want Mrs. Scaianalysis to be shaking it for anything and anyone under the sun. Second, I certainly don’t want her shaking it for a bunch of fish. That’s perverse!

How about we tighten the chorus up to include a little more discretion in where and for whom the lady shakes it?

2.) Tomorrow, Chris Young

I don’t have a problem with the line “We’re like fire and gasoline.”

“Interesting,” I thought to myself the first time I heard the song. “The artist is trying to express the destructive nature of a rendezvous with his former paramour. Excellent imagery.”

But then the next line (That first thought came to me quite rapidly) is “I’m no good for you; you’re no good for me.”

Fire and gasoline are actually quite complimentary. Unless the artist is attempting to show the damaging effects of this relationship on others around him, this is not an apt comparison.

A more suitable comparison would be:

We’re like fire and ammonium polyphosphate
I’m no good for you, and you act as a flame retardant

You might think hexylene glycol would also be a good term to express my hate
But fire fighting foam is only effective as a short-term suppressant

You’ll also notice we’ve switched from an AA to an ABAB rhyming structure which is less insulting to the listener’s intelligence.

3.) How Far to Waco, Ronnie Dunn

Maybe Kix Brooks was the detail-oriented member of the group. First, unless “Waco” is a euphemism I’m not familiar with, the artist is literally referring to the distance from Los Angeles to the city in Texas.

Thus, he means to ask “How much farther do I have to go?” instead of “How much further do I have to go?”

Also, it’s no wonder this trip is taking so long. Look at the ridiculously circuitous route he proposes!

May I suggest, lonely traveler, that you consider going through Amarillo, which will both get you to Waco more quickly andpreserve the rhyming scheme?

I can understand your desire to avoid the construction in north Ft. Worth, so you might consider going through El Paso, but replace Albuquerque with Las Cruces.

I’m not asking for perfection from today’s popular country artists. It’s unfair to suggest we should be trying to duplicate the success of that Robert Earl Keen song where he compares the city lights of Houston to the fiery gates of Hell.

But would it be too tough to write a song about, maybe, a coquettish senorita who steals your heart? And maybe during the bridge, we find out she also stole your wallet?

Or maybe a tune about an old roughneck who spent his whole life in a town just outside Odessa, but now he’s having trouble adjusting to new technology and a younger, quicker generation of oil hands trying to take his job?

Those are two ideas I came up sitting here just now. Come on, Nashville, let’s pick it up.