Country Music and the Pains of Hell

I wrote and posted this a few days ago. It contained a lot of personal stuff that I thought best not to impose upon the rest of the world, however someone did a search on "Mickey Avalon is Stupid" and this post was ranked 4th on Google - Seriously - have you ever seen a Mickey Avalon video? The fact that it was 4th really shocked me. So I have stripped the personal stuff (The pains of hell part!) and left the rest, which actually wasn't that bad - There was still a fair amount of self-loathing, but it fits I think!

I generally don't like country music... When I was a kid there was a joke about backtracking a country song, the punch line being that the guy would get his dog, wife and his truck back - Not a really funny joke, but it pretty much sums up my view of that genre of music. Some years back I would occasionally get the urge to tune into the country station... I sunsequently learned that I am not a pleasant person after listening to it for any amount of time. Kind of like when I used to listen to Michael Jackson - There's self loathing point #1.

There are a handful of country artists that I do like, Toby Keith writes and sings some excellent stuff, and I really like Trace Atkins. My wifes likes some of his stuff too, although I think she's toned that like down a little after she caught my 3 and 1 year olds shaking it to Honky Tonk Badonkadonk... To be fair the look I got on that one was better than the one I got when my 5 year old started singing Mickey Avalon's Jane Fonda as we walked into Church one day - Self loathing point #2

Anyway onto the matter at hand... I was thinkin of a song by Garth Brooks yesterday - He's the only other country guy I like, mostly because he's got Friends in Low Places, but thats another story.

He has a song called The Dance that kind of ties into what I have been thinking about the last few days, but then again not really. It's a typical country song, kind of mellow and sad, so I don't listen to it much. Bascically the story is this... He's married and whilst taking his wife to the local football game runs into his old girlfriend from high school. He talks about how they have changed, and how grateful he is for the prayers which God hasn't answered, since things have turned out better than they would have if he had answered them.

Sometimes though, I think we can look back and find that is isn't so much a case of unanswered prayers, it just that our decisions take us in interesting directions. Not necessarily for better or worse, just different.

I'll no doubt still think back occasionally, but I defintely think the best course is to continue forward and hopefully not make those same mistakes again. I'm grateful in the extreme for second chances though.