It’s the end of the month, which means we’re back with another edition of Why I Dyed My Hair Purple: B-Sides, where I showcase essays from my book, Why I Dyed My Hair Purple and Other Unorthodox Stories, that didn’t make the final cut.
“Country Music” was one of the pieces from my original manuscript that I really hated to lose. It emerged from a desire to interrogate my musical tastes, which play a significant role in the book, and determine where they originated.
As I thought back over my love of country music in particular, this exploration dead-ended into an unusual place: the first time I had a crush on a boy.
There were definitely select country artists I already appreciated. But this experience sent me into another dimension of country music interest.
At the same time, though, it addresses a musical conflict that emerged between my dad and me. For reasons you will soon learn, my dad does not like country music. And yet, a strange connection between us emerged as a result of this change in my musical interests.
I love this piece because it digs into a vulnerable place where music ministered to me. Falling in love for the first time—or so we believe—aches in ways that are both beautiful and painful. Yet, in the end, the essay didn’t address the themes of faith and creativity that permeated the rest of the book, and thus, I had to eliminate it.
Despite that, this piece still has a powerful lesson for believers in Christ. We may think we know what we want and believe with all our hearts that it is the best thing for us, but ultimately, that thing we want so much is simply not in the Lord’s will.
Yet, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, and even in the midst of lost desires, He gives us good gifts that we were not expecting, which far outlast whatever we wanted to begin with.
My dad hated the sound of it. It brought back memories of his first professional gig as the drummer for Howard and the Rhythm Kings, the house band at a bar in the industrial slag heap where he grew up. He was thirteen years old, and at each show, he played “Lovesick Blues” and “Hey Good Lookin’” for drunk factory workers and red-lipsticked women who propositioned him amidst bloody-nosed bar fights, unaware of his age.
From then on, country music made him sick. The whine of steel guitars, the monotony of the two-step—it all sent him back to a time when music was not just a way to make money but to achieve independence. Every moment spent at the back of the stage in the dingy bar was a moment of reprieve from being beaten or thrown down the basement stairs at home.
When I was in seventh grade, I had a crush on a boy in a summer theater program. He was two years older than me, tall and thin with messy brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His unassuming nature attracted me. I was drawn in by how he sat in the corner and listened to his Walkman when he wasn’t onstage. He loved LeAnn Rimes, George Strait, and Reba—all those artists who had their heyday in the late ’90s.
I had it bad for this boy, and I knew that if I was going to win him over, his music was the way to do it. Still, country music was anathema in my family, and the first time a fiddle solo blasted out of the clock radio in my bedroom, I felt like I was betraying my dad. He wasn’t mad, but he wasn’t happy either. He’d grown up with that music as the soundtrack to his most painful childhood moments, and now it plays in my house, he said with a hint of bitterness.
Still, I was enveloped by the genre’s emotion, vocal skill, and instrumentation. I loved how one note slid effortlessly into the next, curving around the rough edges of the melody like water in a rocky stream. Even better was showing up at rehearsal to talk about music with the boy, standing on the curb outside the art gallery where we rehearsed and spitballing lyrics to our favorite songs.
You know what happened next. The theater program ended. We went to different schools. We said we’d call each other. It stung at first, the memory of that summer, the first crush I’d ever had. But country music stayed. As I dug deeper, clinging to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash and the stories buried in their lyrics, I realized that it—not that boy—was what I’d fallen in love with.
My dad tried. He listened patiently when I played my music in the car, even though I saw him cringe more than once. He even took me to see the Dixie Chicks for my sixteenth birthday. It was the first time we’d seen a live band I liked together, and he was surprised by how much he enjoyed it.
I’m sure it was something my dad, as that lonely thirteen-year-old boy, could never have imagined: listening to the same songs with his daughter that he’d performed in that bar, back when playing music he hated was all he had.
Did you enjoy this piece? If you want more short essays about art, faith, and creativity, be sure to check out my new book Why I Dyed My Hair Purple and Other Unorthodox Stories.
It’s my Christian testimony—a journey of discovering how creativity & the arts became central to my faith. It’s for the misfits, the dreamers, & anyone who’s ever asked, “Can God use my imagination?” (Spoiler: He can—and does.)
Grab a copy from callapresspublishing.com or your favorite online retailer.
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