Country music has life lessons
Why do people listen to country music?
Though the question may sound patronizing, it’s actually the subject of serious scholarly inquiry, with a new academic report proposing an evolutionary explanation for people being drawn to songs of failed relationships, lost love and violent vengeance.
Titled Cheatin’ Hearts and Loaded Guns, the Review of General Psychology paper argues that high-stakes musical narratives reward listeners by sharing valuable information about reproductive survival. Much like gawking at a traffic accident, it seems dire consequences serve as vital reminders of that which can cut us off at the knees.
In the words of Nashville sweetheart Carrie Underwood, “maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.”
“Country music feeds our desire to learn about things that carry high fitness consequences in the world, whether fictional or actual,” says report author Robert Kurzban, associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
“It’s the same way it can seem weird that people rubberneck at accidents, watching people they don’t know and will never see again: There’s an informational appetite that’s being satisfied.”
By “fitness” stakes, Kurzban refers to those things that affect people’s ability to survive and reproduce, everything from sexual relationships to physical illness and social conflict.
He notes the cost of betrayal is laid out by Garth Brooks in Papa Loved Mama: “Papa loved mama, mama loved men, mama’s in the graveyard, papa’s in the pen.”
Miranda Lambert addresses domestic violence in Gunpowder and Lead, singing: “He slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll. Don’t that sound like a real man. I’m going to show him what a little girl’s made of: gunpowder and lead.”