as my friend dave c. once told me a couple of decades back when i was getting all uppity about not being a country music fan, his reply to me went something like ‘i get what you are saying, but the best songwriting comes from that genre’. i now understand there is a lot to that notion. ‘three chords and the truth’ is a phrase from the fifties that attempts to describe the simple nature of a country song. i am not sure why country has such an underpinning of great songwriting – we could argue that it usually comes from rural areas and hard scrabble life, the rough nature of the honky tonks, and so on. ken burns’ recent documentary ‘country music’ spent a lot of time on this and i think got to the core of it. but at the end of the day i am not sure we really need to analyze it. it has always been true, and i see no sign of it fading. you could argue that country has gotten too commercial and there are a lot of bad songs out there, but that has always been true about country over time, and has been true of many other genres. i am not denying that aspect of country, but i feel pretty confident in saying that we are currently living in an incredibly vibrant period of access to great songwriting, and most of it comes from the americana/country/ folk universe.

if you find this topic compelling, i urge you to check out a new documentary about the bluebird cafe. i was familiar with its existence, and i have some albums recorded there, and i generally knew about the status as a songwriters mecca. but this movie goes into great details about its history, and offers some very good live playing from tons of artists – some you will know, and many you will not. when mrs. redeyegin suggested to watch it last night, i was intrigued by the prospect of learning more about this club, but i told her i was turned off by some of the names in the marquee – namely taylor swift, garth brooks, and faith hill. don’t let that scare you off. all three were discovered there, but they all play small cameos, and it is clear that they are not the true story that is being told here. this is a story about a hole in the wall joint in a strip mall outside of nashville, that somehow became the place to go if you wanted to get your story out. it is also about how songs get written in nashville, and how it is rather unique in the fact that it is not unusual when more appreciation is given to the songwriter, rather than the singer. getting to the bluebird is now on my bucket list.

my only small beef is that it spent most of the time showcasing how just about anybody can audition to play there, and have a chance at being a taylor swift. it didn’t spend much time on people who came there just to get their song heard, and be appreciated for that. songwriters who needed to tell a tale, and didn’t want to get ground down by the nashville musical industry. can you just imagine being there to see these three playing together?: