Member-only story

Just When You Thought I Was Done With Country Music for a While

Don’t be ridiculous

Paul Combs
3 min readJul 7, 2024
Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

It was nearly a month ago that a comment from notorious country music hater Simon Dillon caused me to take a break from including any country songs in my Rate-A-Record stories (his exact words were: “there has been far too much bloody country music in your rate a records lately”). He probably assumed he would have a calm, fiddle-free summer, especially after one recent installment included both New Order and The Smiths.

Silly Simon.

He was actually safe until my stepdad found a TV channel showing an episode of the classic show Hee Haw. The musical guest was Hank Williams, Jr., and as soon as I saw Bocephus I knew (to paraphrase Ugluk the Uruk-hai from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) country was back on the menu, boys and girls.

And not just any country. I needed country country. And who better to start with than Hank Jr.

“All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down”— Hank Williams, Jr.

--

--

Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

Responses (17)