ridiculous country music songs

 ***I originally posted this on Desirous of Everything as a guest blogger - you should go there***

I am from a small town in Alberta Canada.

For those of you who don't know what that means, this is how I remember it: farmers, real cowboys, oil sands, "rig pigs", house parties and underage drinking, "family values", the best bush parties ever, Hutterites, jocks vs druggies, fighting, racism, money, drugs, freezing cold winters, knowing your neighbors, knowing everybody's business, community gatherings, people constantly having babies, a working steam train, drama, obesity...

People always say it's the Texas of Canada, but I've heard Austin is awesome so I don't know if that's fair to Texans.

There's some cool stuff about small towns too, for sure. My step-dad is the mayor, for example. That's pretty cool, right? And a lot of people I love and care about like living that way, which makes it indismissable for me. It just really wasn't my bag. I have always been obsessed with obtaining absolute anonymity on the streets, maybe because I'm so shy or a snob or something. I really think I'd thrive in a London or a New York City, where nobody knows my name. Kind of like a reverse-Cheers-type-scenario.


Anyway, one thing I regrettably gained over my five or six rather formative years in a particular small town, was an extensive knowledge base of country music. But wait, I'm not talking about the "cool" country music. No no no.

I'm talking about POP COUNTRY. 

Yeah. That's right, your ol' Nova "Rella" knows all the words to probably every Shania Twain song ever written. Terrible, isn't it? It's not my fault! The only radio station in the whole town played top 40 country, and it was the only thing the bars in town played unless one of the metal kids got to "guest dj".

When my friend Sam, who is from London, asked me if I'd ever heard country music before, and was it a "real thing", it blew me away that not everybody learned line dancing in gym class! (Electric Slide? Cadillac Ranch? Anybody?)  Not everybody knows the lyrics to Fishin' in the Dark...which I have on my iPod at the moment actually...full disclosure! Whatever, that song is kind of awesome.

Anyway, the point is, rather than hanging out in old barns listening to people blow on jugs with three x's painted on the sides and pluckin' banjo strings like I should have, I was repeatedly exposed to songs about achey breaky and/or cheatin' hearts, what guys do all the time, and um...sexy tractors 

What, you think I'm joking? Well, for those of you international readers who don't know the crazy ridiculous phenomenon that is "pop country" here are the three VERY popular pop country songs that are so ridiculous I can't even...I don't even...

Just listen!