Are you ready for the country?

First off, thank you to everyone who took time out of your busy schedules to indulge my absurd contest. Thank you also to Mr. Sponge, who provided a timely assist just when low voter turnout threatened to turn my weekend into a ever-darkening spiral of despair and alcohol abuse. Now that the whole thing is over and the winner(s) have been decided, I am left to look back on the whole experience and think, Oh fuck, now I actually have to write one of those stupid country songs. Two of those stupid country songs, actually. Because there was a tie and I was too honest and too stupid just to write a fake comment tipping the balance to one or the other. So that’s more work I have to do. And it’s not like I’m not busy already, what with my six jobs and my trying to find a new job and my novel and my short stories and all that. Dammit.

But enough whining. According to my tabulations, the victors are as follows: “Take Off Them Waders” and “Jesus Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It”. Two fine titles, perhaps, but I was really hoping you people would choose “(I’m Fixin’ to Love You) Full-On Kentucky Style” or “I Ain’t Gay, I’m Just Thinkin’ Bout His Ass”. Because I actually had ideas for those ones. Good ideas. And now those ideas must die. Oh well. If people always voted the way I wanted them to, John Kerry would be our president, Mark Green would be mayor of NYC, and magic gumdrops would rain down from hot pink candy volcanos as unicorns dance merrily up joy-flavored rainbows towards hundred-gallon pots of gold and hot tubs teeming with saucy Brazilian ingenues. But I guess it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, I think I’m going to do one song today and one song tomorrow, so as not to strain my creativity muscle. Tonight’s installment is gonna be a tear-jerker, so if you’re the emotional type, be sure to steel yourself now.


Take Off Them Waders

Well, you and me been farmin’
Since ‘bout 1972
And if there’s one thing I know about farmin’
It ain’t so easy to do
But, baby, you took to it
Like a fat man to barbeque
And now this fat man’s so happy
That he’s farmin’ here with you
And I got to tell it plain
And I hope you understand
That tonight this old fool’s
Gonna be your lovin’ man

So take off them waders, honey
Step into the candlelight
Get out of them overalls, darlin’
Because we gonna do this thing up right...

Every got-damned day
You get up at four in the mornin’
Rainin’, snowin’, hailin’
And the farm-hand’s quit with no warnin’
Well, you’ve birthed more calves
Than a million high-class ladies
And, sweetheart, you’ve pulled enough udders
To make John Henry look lazy
Now, I ain’t never seen heaven
Or the Eiffel Tower in Gay Paree
But I don’t any of them things look as good
As you, covered in manure and comin’ back to me

So take off them waders, honey
Step into the candlelight
Get out of them overalls, darlin’
Because we gonna do this thing up right