I’ve been listening to music for my whole life, every different genre except for country music. My dad is something of a music connoisseur and has always taught my sister and I everything he can about music, whether he was talking about Black Sabbath or Miles Davis. Yet the one thing that was always consistent was that I absolutely did not listen to country music.
Up until I was nine years old, I didn’t even listen to modern music. My childhood was filled with my father’s music: The Beatles, John McLaughlin and the Talking Heads to name a few. I had never heard of Rihanna, Fergie or anything new. This gave me a great appreciation for past music and how it influenced the music of today, but I didn’t know how much I was missing out on.
I was nine years old when I listened to my first modern music. Rihanna’s “Umbrella” played in my ears and I instantly loved it. I hadn’t heard anything like that before in my life and it was so interesting. From this point on, I began my new life as a fan of both older and newer music. Still, I wasn’t listening to country music. I wasn’t 100% sure why I hated it so much, but I refused to listen to it to any degree. I think it had something to do with where I grew up. Even though I call New Jersey home, my small town was very country and country music could be heard from every truck that drove by. The problem was, I hated my hometown. I didn’t want to be like the people from there and I didn’t want to be associated with the town. I had cut out an entire genre of music because I wanted to be different.
I was so afraid of being related to my hometown then that I didn’t find the value in country music. I wouldn’t even listen to one song, so I was being ignorant. Once I opened up my mind and my ears, I found a genre of music that I loved just as much as all the others. Now, country music is such a big part of what I listen to on a daily basis that even my family asks about what happened to my hatred of it. I’ve grown so much from what I once was to someone who is less worried about where they came from and more worried about who they’ll be in the future. I’ve learned to be more relaxed and I’ve found that country music can be equally relaxing.
It took me twenty years to open my mind to an entire genre of music, but I’m so glad that I did. I’ve found something that can both calm me and make me feel good. While other music can do the same, country music consistently makes me feel a little lighter and smile a little harder. So, here’s to my life as a new-found country music fan and a more well-rounded music fan in general.