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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2549 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Rich Men North of Richmond

I don't think I've seen this discussed here yet? I have to admit, the song has grown on me. It really feels authentic in a way that say, Try That in a Small Town doesn't.

My family's background is roughly speaking confederate descendants who roamed around after the war with about three separate main branches settling between Appalachia and Texas.

As other comments have pointed out "whiny"-ness, let me double down that - this song continues a long tradition of folk/country/bluegrass fatalism that I have little tolerance for. "My daddy grew up here and lived as a poor man, and so did my grandaddy, and so did his daddy...but we all grew up right, and I'm gonna stay here and be just like them!" .... Why / how is inter-generational poverty a virtue? If it's the case that your in such an awful economic situation that you can't advance your lot in life more than several generations before you, you have all of my sympathy. And that same sympathy disappears the second you turn that situation into some sort of battle cry of authenticity or moral superiority.

There's something to be said here about crabs in a bucket, and how it seems like - for more than a few cultures inspired by Southern Clanish / Honor cultures - the only way to prove authenticity and adherence to "traditional" (and, therefore, right) cultural norms is through demonstrated poverty and dysfunction.

Why is that the goal? Sure, I have a deep appreciation for stories about the dust bowl I heard growing up, but I have more appreciation that my Dad and Uncles used the G.I. bill to get STEM degrees and were also willing to move the family around for job opportunities. Law obeying, studious, industrious, and economically astute seems like a good rubric for "Rasied 'Em Right!" when compared with impulsive, prone to violence, substance abuse, obsessed with vague notions of honor but .... geographically consistent?

The unfortunate fact is that your suffering alone yields no accolade or social currency. No one cares. The best you can do, as this song tries to, is whip up some strong emotionalism and try to trade-the-currency for moral deference. But that exchange rate is never strong and that commodity expiry is measured in hours.

my Dad and Uncles used the G.I. bill to get STEM degrees and were also willing to move the family around for job opportunities. Law obeying, studious, industrious, and economically astute seems like a good rubric for "Rasied 'Em Right!" when compared with impulsive, prone to violence, substance abuse, obsessed with vague notions of honor but .... geographically consistent?

Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come? It’s not the dirt that’s dumb in rural communities, and it’s not the water which makes addicts of the townsfolk.

As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory. It’s a far more precious price than a mortgage. (I can’t say I feel that same drive myself, as my parents’ families are from Ohio and Michigan, yet we live in a huge modern city in New Mexico. I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.)

Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come?

That's a fair enough point for the current generation. I have no idea how you would mean to apply that to the generations that grew up in rural America (especially Appalachia) before .... 2000? "Go get an education and come back" was also not reasonable because local economies often lacked the professional infrastructure to support (let alone attract) degree holders.

As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory.

Quiet part out loud, bro. You emphasized "died" instead of "fought for." Fatalism.

And what's the salience of the piece of land on which the dying occurred? Before the Civil War, a lot of sons of Appalachia died in all kinds of strange spots west of the Ohio, South of the Rio Grande, and elsewhere. Grandpa lost friends in France and Germany ... not a whole lot of country songs about the Ardennes. World War 2 veterans are remembered for the dedication to American values and a conflict against evil, imperialism, subjugation. That promotes a more generative outlook on the possibilities post-combat than the immutable fact of location and time of death.

I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.

I don't know if this is an attempt at humor or not.

I have no idea how you would mean to apply that to the generations that grew up in rural America (especially Appalachia) before .... 2000?

Convenient, then, that we're focusing on a songwriter who was born nearly a decade before 2000, and whose hometown has a university and a college, each with the kind of Internet access which allows business to occur remotely from port cities.

Quiet part out loud, bro. You emphasized "died" instead of "fought for." Fatalism.

Don't QPOL me, bro, I'm a damyankee whose grandparents come from Ohio, Michigan, and parts further north and east. I'm saying a death is usually considered a higher price to pay for a plot of land than a successful battle, despite the PTSD, alcoholism, and generational child abuse from "fighting for". (Although to some degree, it shouldn't.) A death means a tombstone, and a tombstone often anchors a family to a locale.

And what's the salience of the piece of land on which the dying occurred? Before the Civil War, a lot of sons of Appalachia died in all kinds of strange spots west of the Ohio, South of the Rio Grande, and elsewhere. Grandpa lost friends in France and Germany ... not a whole lot of country songs about the Ardennes.

Facetious, almost farcically so. The salience is that their grandfathers and fathers built the towns and cities they died for; their names went into family bibles with generations in the same spot, while their brothers and cousins left for big cities or adventurism out west or across vast oceans. There's a very romantic, very human tendency to work to keep what previous generations paid costly prices for, even when the going gets tough and it looks like a depreciating asset.

The Americans in the Ardennes was an ideological battle, an estimation that if Hitler took the Bulge from a band of brothers, someday he might roll over the Appalachians.

I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.

I don't know if this is an attempt at humor or not.

Why, I do dee-clare I believe my dislike of revenooers done come from ol' Snuffy Smif hisself.

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