Maybe you don't drink a ton of beer or drive a pick-up truck, but the messages in country music are universal.
Country music speaks for itself. What does the word "country" mean? It means "the people of a nation". Country music is music about the people of a nation. Now, while there are some people who don't comprehend this (ethnicity is not the same as nationality or nation of citizenship), it cannot be disputed that Americans share a set of core values: family, friendship, and the love that those two things encompass. That's what country music is all about. It's about life in its purest form.
Some songs talk about squirrels ("Country Girl" by Luke Bryan), some about wine ("Strawberry Wine" by Deana Carter), some about trucks (too many to pick one), and even more about beer (obviously). These are just symbols of family, friends, and love.
Squirrels seem a bit ambiguous, but, when you think about it, and this may be a tad absurd, squirrels are a common part of life (at least, for me and for most people in the Northeast). That's a symbol of stability and, the more obvious symbol, silliness.
Then, we have wine. Wine is characteristic of people. Wine is deep. Wine is alive and laid-back. Wine is sweet and bitter; strawberry wine is bittersweet. So, maybe, wine is more a symbol of life because we all know it isn't always sweet.
Trucks and beer... now, those aren't exactly symbols, but the songs that they are written into are stories about life. We all have those. Trucks and beer seem to characterize a lifestyle. We don't all have the same lifestyle, but we can relate to those that things that make us reminisce about our childhood or our first love or our people—those that make us who we are. Maybe the truck that Kip Moore talks about in a farmer's field with a girl in a red sundress is your grandma's Honda Civic in the movie theater parking-lot with a girl in UGG boots. But there was something about that night, something in the way that girl looked at you, that made you remember every detail of the whole evening. So, trucks and beer just might be what connect people to, well, people.
Maybe you don't drink a ton of beer or drive a pick-up truck, but the messages in country music are universal. Country music is about life and it's your challenge to translate someone else's story into your own. How much more enriching can music get?
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