Home » 5 Montgomery Gentry Songs You Can Roll Through Life With

Country Music, Dad Life, Song Analysis

5 Montgomery Gentry Songs You Can Roll Through Life With

This week, the Dads take a deep dive into one of Mick’s all-time favorite artists: Montgomery Gentry. The 5 songs we analyze build a life narrative that any dad can relate to, whether you’re a Montgomery Gentry superfan (Mick) or a Montgomery Gentry newb (Dave). Take a listen and “roll with me” as we unpack some of the biggest hits from this early aughts country music super-duo.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Show Notes:

  • 11:00 – Dad Life Sound Check: The Dad’s Talk about the Songs “Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old)” by ⁠⁠Garth Brooks⁠⁠ and “Yes Ma’am, He Found Me In A Honky Tonk”” by ⁠⁠Summer Dean⁠.
  • ⁠15:35 –  HARDY Report: Dave talks about his favorite HARDY song of all time and how it has become his white whale because he has never seen it performed live.  
  • 20:06 – Farm Boy Update: Mick lost his lawnmower
  • 21:40: The Dads take a deep dive into one of Mick’s all time favorite country music artists: ⁠⁠Montgomery Gentry⁠.⁠ Mick explains how many of their biggest hits form a life narrative. Dave shares how he wasn’t the most familiar with the group but realized that he can relate to much of their music.  

You can find back episodes and our playlist on ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠  and via our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠webpage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Please follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠ @countrymusicdads. Correspondence can be sent to ⁠countrymusicdads@gmail.com⁠. Most importantly, please give us a 5-star review and share the show with all of your friends.

References:

Transcript

As parents, we have dreams and we have ideas based on our hindsight being 2020 and how we see our kids and what they’re maybe interested in or what they’re suited to.

And then when they don’t necessarily see things the same way, you’re like, they just don’t get it.

No, they get it, they get it for them, they don’t get it for you.

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang.

We’re bringing you highly subjective, sometimes questionable, but always 100% authentic country music analysis, as only two dads in the trenches of modern parenting could do it.

My name is Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

My name is Mick, and I am also a country music dad.

Thank you for joining us.

Today, we are going to discuss Montgomery Gentry and how some of their songs, when you listen to them in a certain order, can give what I would call maybe a roadmap into, you know, a snapshot of life.

We were just talking about our current state of affairs here.

The kids just went back to school, and that’s a big transition, mostly for the good for me.

Daddy summer camp is a wrap.

It’s over.

Kids are back in school.

At least the oldest two are back in school.

And I think it was a success.

I’m proud to say.

But have you gotten any more feedback except for that day in the park?

Did they fill out their TPS reports?

I got plenty of feedback near the end.

I’ll say that I know it was a success because I can look back and there’s lots of memories that we made.

I think that I kept my expectations sufficiently low.

So I kept my goals very achievable.

Let the boys become better friends and say like, this is what our home is like.

This is a place you guys can be happy and be yourselves and get a break from who they’re expected to be in school.

So I think that was a success.

By the end, I think we’re all just sick of each other though.

I just didn’t want to hear any more feedback because most of it was, we don’t do anything fun at the daddy summer camp.

I don’t like daddy, I want mommy and I had to really resist the urge to say, same here dude, same here.

I don’t want to be here either.

All right, I want you back at school.

School on balance is a great success.

I think I hit all of my goals and I think we were ready, collectively ready for school to start.

So I think we had enough of a break and I’m thankful to have the structure back.

I think the boys are thankful to have some structure back.

I don’t know if I’m going to get a positive review from my customers on Daddy Summer Camp, but I’m going to read between the lines and say that I know my kids, I could tell they had a good time.

I guarantee you, you’re going to get a positive review because you have to remember at four years old, six years old, that memory is short.

It doesn’t matter that you went to the beach yesterday, got ice cream afterwards and then watched whatever movie they’re into at night.

What matters to them is the fact that you said, no, you can’t have an Otter Pop in your lunchbox at school.

That’s all they’re going to remember.

Yep, it was the no to the second or third Otter Pop, depending on the day they’re going to remember.

And yeah, the really classic story here, in the last week before school started, I had heard the feedback from my four year old.

He said, we don’t do anything fun on Daddy Summer Camp.

And I said, oh yeah, check this out.

We’re going to go to this special climbing gym, just for you guys for a couple hours this afternoon.

It’s called Scooters Jungle.

It’s got all these like inflatable slides and stuff and ping pong and air hockey and all this stuff for them to climb around and do.

And they’d been there before and they really liked it.

So I said, it’s going to be a treat.

We’re going to go to this place.

And we got in the car, 4 year old fell asleep and he woke up half an hour later once we got there and he looked around and said, I hate this place.

I was like, come on, man.

I was trying to salvage the whole summer, take you to this place that I know that you like, special trip.

And turns out he hates it.

So you’re right.

Short memories.

And I’m going to try and keep a short memory too so I don’t remember all the harsh words.

Because he woke up from a bad dream.

What have you done for me lately?

What are you going to do for me next?

They’re constantly looking ahead.

Whereas when you get older, it’s a lot easier to look behind you.

Hindsight is 2020, but when you’re four years old, you don’t have a whole lot of hindsight.

I would have given you a positive TPS report.

Thanks.

You can be my boss any day, Mick.

All right.

There we go.

And I have a boss, she’s 10, and she went back to school this week too.

How’s that going?

Oh, it’s a lot of the same summer.

At the end, she was ready and willing to admit that she was getting bored at home and she was ready to go back to school, get back to that structure, get back to her friends.

It does come and it’s just all a matter of the perspective of the age range that you’re dealing with.

I know you took a trip.

Yes, we did.

We took.

My dad buddies and I, my old Casey dad buddies and I took our annual dad’s trip.

I think I mentioned on the last show with Macy, we were going to go to Memphis and we did and we had a blast.

So we rolled into Memphis on Saturday night about 5, 6 o’clock.

But in my mind, when you hear Memphis barbecue, they’re famous for ribs, they’re famous for a dry style of ribs, and the most famous place in Memphis for ribs is a place called Rendezvous.

I think I got a bottle of it.

Yeah, here we go.

Charles Vergos Rendezvous.

Rory loved the sauce so much, we bought a bottle and brought it home.

Nice.

So the very first thing we did was walk down to this place and had some really good barbecue.

They were excellent.

Just a different flavor profile than anything you can get here in Kansas City.

That was a bucket list item for me.

Next day, we started off in the morning, we did a tour of Sun Studios, and I told Macy last episode that I would get a t-shirt, and I did, but that was just a great tour to so much history in that place.

That’s where Elvis got to start and Johnny Cash, and so many early country artists had a lot of the blues influence in that Southern Delta music.

If you ever get to Memphis, doesn’t matter if you’re a music fan or a blues fan or rock and roll fan, if you’re just a music fan, you will appreciate the history at Sun Studios.

The interesting thing is it is still a functioning recording studio.

So for like $200 an hour, you can still go and record there.

So after they get the tours done during the day, they record at night, which I thought was pretty cool.

It looks almost exactly the same as when Elvis and all those other guys were there back in the 50s and 60s.

Just pretty awesome.

How many kids are tagging along with you guys?

This is a massive group.

Five dads, 16 kids.

That is just so crazy.

I can’t even imagine what that looks like walking down the street.

I saw some pictures and videos you guys put up.

It must be quite the scene.

I’ve got some that I’ve been saving for to tie in when this episode comes out.

But there’ll be some more on the Instagram for our listeners to check out as well.

But it is a scene.

When we go into a restaurant, we take it over for better or worse.

The kids are all really well-behaved.

They’ve been to so many museums because we’ve done so many activities over the years of like this, or just day-to-day playgroup type activities that our kids know that when they go into a museum, they don’t jack around.

They know that they’ve been trained since they’ve been two, three years old, that museums are no-go zones in terms of shenanigans.

So, we always get really positive feedback.

And they’re like, oh, we saw this group with all these big kids, but you guys were awesome.

And we’re like, thank you.

Thank you.

You’re my best Elvis voice.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

But I’m just wrapped it up the next day with going to the Peabody Hotel.

And I don’t know, Dave, if you’re familiar with the Peabody Hotel at all, or if any of our listeners are.

The Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis is one of those old style hotels where it’s got the big lobby and everything’s made out of marble or granite or some type of a polished stone.

It just looks like the kind of hotel lobby that you see in movies, like in New York City.

It’s that grand hotel lobby, period.

But what they did, they started back, I think, in the 30s or whatever.

But they had an indoor, they have an indoor fountain.

And as a joke, way back in the day, somebody put ducks in there.

And that just has become a tradition.

So there are ducks that live up on top of the roof of the pea body.

And then every day at 11 o’clock, they march them down the elevator and they march them into the fountain.

They hang out there for five, six hours.

And then they march back out at the end of the day and take the elevators back up to the roof where they live.

I took a video of it and we’ll put it on Instagram later when this episode comes out.

It’s just fun to see these little ducks waddling out of the elevator and right on up into this fountain.

That sounds delightful and kid-friendly.

Very much.

And they make a big production out of it.

The hotel lobby fills up with people coming to watch.

And yeah, it’s fun.

All in all, it was a great trip.

It’s been a tradition that we’ve done here in Kansas City for a long time.

I think it’s the highlight of the kids’ summer.

They are always constantly throughout the year.

Where are we going next year?

Where are we going next year?

And they still talk about their experiences over the years on it.

Good, fun times, just the dads and 16 kids.

Epic is the word that comes to mind.

I’ll take that.

Let’s move on to our dad life sound check.

A week or so ago, we got Luke moved off to college and that all went pretty simple.

The problem is, do you want to take this?

No.

Do you want that?

No.

Three days later, yeah, I changed my mind.

I want PBC XYZ.

So loaded up all the stuff that Luke now decided he wanted, drove down to Rolla, bought him lunch, unloaded his stuff, hung out for a little bit and then made the way back home.

Got out of the car.

I was tired.

I was sore.

And I was just, man, I am much too young to feel this damn old by Garth Brooks.

I know that song is all about the rodeo, but I was just stiff and sore.

It just, I went to bed early last night.

I need your rest, man.

And you are much too young to feel like that, even though that’s, it seems to be a common topic that we bring up.

Garth was only like 25 when he recorded that song too.

Who knew that it would resonate with people twice his age at the time.

I don’t know how to respond to that.

Garth is not on Spotify.

I don’t know if you knew this about Garth.

I did not.

But he keeps his catalog very closely protected.

So I think he’s on Amazon.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to have the Garth song on the Spotify playlist, which is a bummer.

What’s speaking to you lately?

Yeah.

So what’s speaking to me, I went to a couple of shows since we last chatted, Mick, and the last one was this smaller show in Hollywood that Country Cutler has been trying to get me a go-to for a long time.

Put on by Grand Old Country Bunker at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood.

That’s a good name of a saloon.

That just brings old-time vibes.

Yeah.

The place did not disappoint.

The stage is elevated on this balcony inside the bar.

You can see the band from everywhere.

It’s definitely got this old-timey, dark, dank saloon feel to it, my kind of bar.

The headliner was an artist named Summer Dean.

She put on a great show.

She’s very outlaw, old-school, honky tonk attitude.

A lot of songs stood out to me, but there’s one called Yes Ma’am, He Found Me In A Honky Tonk.

She wrote this song as a message to her future mother-in-law, that yes ma’am, this is where I came from.

It’s like a fun song in the very old Hank Williams style.

But the message is about how you’re meeting your future in-laws and trying to explain who you are.

You’re worried about how they’re going to receive you into their family.

And it made me think back to when I first met Kim back in high school, we were high school sweethearts.

She was this star athlete, different circle of friends.

And I had just been cut from the baseball team.

And I was trying to reinvent myself as a volleyball player.

Back at that time, even in Southern California, volleyball was more commonly played by girls.

So I was trying out for the men’s volleyball team and I started going out with this star athlete at our school.

And I remember meeting her dad, her uncles, all of whom were big sports people.

There’s always that thought in the back of my mind.

Do I belong here, dating this superstar soccer player, superstar swimmer, when I’m this lowly volleyball player?

So when I was here in Summerdine, give this explanation to her mother-in-law.

I was thinking about talking to Kim’s dad and saying, yes, sir, she found me on the volleyball team.

That’s what’s resonating with me as I wrap up my old man baseball league and try to piece my body back together with the help of a lot of ad bill.

It’s just reminiscing on the good old times.

You are much too young.

Yeah, I really am.

I don’t know what’s going on with me.

I have to figure some things out here.

What has Hardy been figuring out?

I’ll admit I have not been following Hardy’s latest exploits as closely as usual this summer.

Probably has something to do with daddy summer camp and all those distractions known as my kids.

But this week, I know that during the Hardy report, when I try to educate everyone as the premier West Coast Hardy apologist.

Fanboy.

I’ve heard from a lot of our listeners, they will take my advice, they’ll go check out Hardy.

And if you search for Hardy’s music right now, you get his rock music, because that’s what he’s been putting out most recently.

Some people listen to it, and maybe they’re country fans, and they’ll say, he’s interesting, but he’s not really a country.

And I’ll say, yeah, yeah, and I have to give them the explanation why he’s who he is, the full Hardy story.

The song that I wanted to talk about is my favorite Hardy song, and it’s a country song.

It’s called My Kind Of Living, and it’s deep in the archives of Hardy’s catalog.

It was off of Hick’s Tape, Volume One, which I think is probably my favorite Hardy album.

He did a lot of collaborations with a bunch of country artists, and he wrote all the songs, he’s on all the tracks, and My Kind Of Living was my favorite.

I paint this image of a simple life out in the country that he’s pining for having been in the city for a little while.

Whenever I hear it, it resonates with me because city life and just life as a parent can feel hectic, and I always have to reset and find little moments of silence and peace.

That’s what that song does for me.

So if you’re new to the Hardy experience, I would suggest you start with Hick State Volume 1, start with My Kind 11 if you’re a country fan, and work your way up to the Screaming Rock and Roll Hardy of Today.

That’s my message for this week’s Hardy Earth.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one from him.

I find myself drawn to songs that have that message.

It is my all-time favorite.

I’ve seen Hardy live a lot of times, and he has not played this one yet live for me.

So this is my weight whale.

I want to hear this one someday, and it’s going to happen.

I trust it’s going to happen.

Because he used to play it live.

I’ve seen it on YouTube.

It’s not making the cut these days.

Isn’t it so interesting though, and this is going to show my age.

But back when you had to buy the whole album, now you can just buy songs.

Now you can just stream songs.

But I was growing up, you had to buy the whole album.

And it just seems like more often than not, your favorite song by a specific artist ends up being something that was just an album track.

Not a single, not a heavily promoted radio release or anything like that.

But the album tracks oftentimes become your favorite songs by artists.

I think with those kind of deeper cuts, I feel like a more personal connection to them.

Oh, I discovered this one.

No one knows about this one.

Let me tell you.

So that’s what I feel about this one too.

My kind of living.

And actually came into my consciousness again recently because Hardy was interviewed by this comedian.

His name is Caleb Pressley.

And he does these kind of farcical interviews that he puts out on Instagram or maybe TikTok.

But I’ll get in the show notes.

This is a really funny interview with Hardy.

At one point, he just asked Hardy, I’m going to list out some words and you tell me if they are country or not.

And so he lists out a series of words like a river, fried fish, cold beer, and Hardy’s, yep, that’s country, that’s country, that’s country.

And then he reveals at the end that those are all things that Hardy mentions in the first verse of My Kind of Living.

If you’re just going off of terminology, then My Kind of Living counts as a country song.

But of course, that’s debatable depending on your taste.

Great interview.

Check it out.

I will check the show notes.

What’s going on at the farm, Mick?

We’ve had a kind of a development.

Oh, that doesn’t sound good.

It’s not.

There’s been a development on the homestead.

I lost my lawnmower.

How do you lose a lawnmower?

You have one of those big ones, right?

You can ride around on it.

Is that the one you’re talking about?

No, I’m talking about the driver, technically.

My lawnmower driver went to college.

I got you.

Okay.

I thought maybe the ghost of George Jones dropped by and took off with the lawnmower.

Oh, that’s good.

That goes back.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That was well-played.

No, Luke, as I said, we got him moved off to college.

So he’s been mowing the lawn for the last however many years.

That’s the one job that he never complained about doing.

So I would just send him off.

You know, takes about three hours to mow everything.

And he moved away.

So now I have got to figure this out.

Oh, man.

That’s a big hole to fill right there.

I think I’m going to have Rory do it.

She’s a trainer.

Yep.

She needs a new skill set to develop.

Nice.

Good luck.

And hopefully you’ve got enough lined up on your playlist to make it the three hours yourself necessary.

Yes.

I think we’re over 50 songs now on the playlist.

Yeah, that should get me through the three hour, three hour tour.

All right.

Let’s move on into the main subject.

This subject was my idea.

I’ve been pushing Dave to do this one for a little while now.

I’m a little nervous because I don’t know if this is going to come together the same way that it has come together over the years in my brain.

I’m just going to lay that out there.

I hope it does.

If it does and it works, then it’s going to be a fantastic show.

If we’re not able to pull it together, then I’m just going to go drown my sorrows and pretend I’m George Jones because-

I’ll just say it’s all your fault.

Yeah, exactly.

But we’re going to talk Montgomery Gentry.

Now, Montgomery Gentry is probably one of my all-time favorites.

When they debuted back in 99, their brand of music and their style just cooked me from day one.

They were the pinnacle of music duos in the early 2000s, the Aughts.

That’s when most of their big hits came out.

I just always found myself drawn to their songs.

Oftentimes, their songs are an homage to the rural lifestyle.

Me growing up in Iowa on a farm, there’s just something that I could always identify with.

When Troy Gentry passed on that chopper accident, helicopter accident back in 17, it was an emotional time for me because I realized that I’m never going to hear anything new from them.

As somebody who just really identified with their music for so long, that was hard.

That was tough.

I’ll give Eddie credit for trying to keep T-Roy’s legacy going by playing a lot of their songs constantly when he does perform.

But the idea behind this episode is that if you look at some of their biggest hits, coincidentally these are the songs that I really identify with that happened to be some of their biggest hits.

But if you listen to them kind of in an order, they will give you a life narrative that is really easy to identify with, either from where you were raised, small towns, rural areas where you are in life or maybe where you want to go in life.

But there’s a lot of parenting themes in these songs as well.

I hope you guys enjoy this episode as much as I know that I am.

Like Mick said, he’s been pushing for an episode about Montgomery Gentry and he hasn’t gotten a lot of support from me because this is a band that I wasn’t that familiar with.

I’m still not really that familiar with.

When he gave me the list of five songs they were going to be talking about, I’d heard all those songs before.

I’m familiar with them and I’m familiar with way more of their stuff because they’re on the radio, they’re really popular.

I just don’t think they’re registered with me who it was the band that was doing the song.

So it was a nice little education to prepare for the episode.

I will also say that when I first, I’ll be honest with you, Mick, because we’re friends here.

When I first saw your list of songs, my first impression since I knew all the songs I’d heard them before was like, I don’t know if these are my style.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get into them as much as I want to.

So I started listening to it and one of the songs popped up.

I was like, I can identify with this one.

I remember this one.

Unfortunately, it was not on your list of songs.

It was one in every crowd.

But that made me think a little more deeply about where I was coming from.

I was getting in my mind a little critical of your picks of songs, but of course, the one that speaks to me is the very Bro Country, Montgomery Gentry song, one in every crowd about their buddy, Good Time Charlie, who goes out drinking.

It made me realize that I think I told Macy at the last episode, like I used to be a bro.

I used to be in a bro country.

Actually, I still am in the bro country.

I’m still the bro that I used to be.

Maybe not as good as I once was, but it helped me to have more of an open mind when I realized I’m being critical in my head before I listen to these songs.

There’s a lot of things that criticize me about my music taste.

The Hardy Report, for instance.

All you’re doing is you’re just spotlighting, showcasing, putting verbiage to the fact that different songs hit you different ways at different times.

The same song can hit somebody in a multitude of different ways.

That’s why music is so beautiful.

Let’s go back, you mentioned Country Cutler earlier, but you go back to the point that Donnie was trying to make.

It’s all about the storytelling and it could be your life story or it could be the story that you’re trying to get a point across with.

That’s why Country Music is so beautiful.

Because you can find a way to adapt it to what you need or want at any particular time.

I think now in my current phase of life, I realized the songs that you prepared are a lot deeper than I remembered them back when I probably heard them in my bro-ish 20s.

So anyway, on with the list.

All right.

Back when I Knew It All goes into that bro-ish country time frame, but Back When I Knew It All was released in 2008, and I think it was their fourth number one hit.

This song is pretty easy to break apart because it’s all about youthful arrogance and reflecting on the teenage years, the wisdom of hindsight and everything of that nature.

When you listen to it, especially as you get older, you’re, yep, yep, I remember, yep, glad I don’t do that anymore.

It’s just a good song that just, in a lot of Montgomery Gentry songs do that.

They just, they take you back.

They take you back and they make you think about where they, where you were in your life.

That’s why I started with this one, because it can take you back to the beginning.

Yeah, my takeaway is this is songs about all the wisdom you gain through experience in life.

And in my 20s, I didn’t really feel like I was learning as much.

And maybe I’m just more reflective now in my middle-aged years.

So I’m a little more consistently looking back at my last week or my last year, like where have I been?

Where am I going?

And what have I learned?

And so I feel like I’m learning more now than I did when I was younger.

Right, because back then you knew it all.

Yeah, exactly.

So like I said, there’s depth to even a song like this that you feel like is pretty simple.

Yeah, of course, you’re like a know-it-all when you’re young and reckless.

But when you peel back the layers a little bit, it’s very meaningful.

And then once you start getting out of that phase, then you start thinking about, okay, maybe what’s the next part of your life?

So that’s going to be my segue into the song Roll With Me.

Roll With Me came out in 2008.

When this song came out, I had been married for about five years.

This song, to me, reminds me of why I got married.

Because this song talks about moving forward with the rest of your life, and slowing down, and just living the way you want to be, the way you should be.

I’ll be honest, this is my favorite Montgomery Gentry song.

It is very hard for me to put into words what this song means to me on a personal level.

Because every time I hear this song, it stops me in my tracks.

I stop what I’m doing.

Unless I’m driving down the road, I obviously don’t stop.

But I tune everything else out.

And I just focus on the aspect of when I decided that I wanted to ask Kelly to get married, I knew she was the one I wanted to roll through life with.

This song just has a very deep personal meaning for me to this day.

I’m glad your take on it was the romantic aspect, because the title of the song is Roll With Me.

It’s a singer is talking to his partner about, get on board and let’s go through life together.

When I was listening to it, I feel like most of the song to me was talking about slowing down like you mentioned, but in making that shift from being personally focused on achievement or what you’re going to accomplish in life versus who you’re becoming in life.

What I felt was a really profound dichotomy in the song is the very first line talks about how he’s a young man trying to make sure that I’m all that I can be versus in the chorus.

He’s ain’t worried about nothing except for the man I want to be.

So it’s the difference between, instead of achievement, it’s about your own personal development.

I feel like there was a shift in my life at least when I was a younger man.

I was focused on my career and the things that I can become.

I can become an engineer, I can become a professional, I can make money, I can get a house, whatever.

There’s all these life accomplishments.

I think I’ve shifted my mindset where it’s more about my own personal journey.

What kind of a person am I becoming?

What kind of father, husband am I becoming?

Or have I become and trying to improve myself separate from the personal material accomplishments.

That was what I took away from the song when I listened through it.

So for me, it was hard to make that connection.

This is about personal development and then he’s talking to somebody, his partner.

So I like your interpretation of it, that it is like a personal development thing, but you’re thinking about who is going to be there by your side as you’re going through the different beats of life.

Yeah, that’s how I’ve already got it.

Now it does.

I will, I would probably be remiss if I didn’t mention.

So there is, if you watch the video on the song and then you listen to, I think it is what the second verse just completely makes a different direction.

Talks about a mom who lost her soldier son.

So it’s a completely different departure from what I take out of the majority of the song.

But I still think it works because she’s going to have to essentially find who she wants to be moving forward in some way, shape or form.

The song still works for me even with that middle verse.

That middle verse I think works because whenever you see like a tragedy unfold, I think it makes me extra reflective over the things that are really important in life.

And going back to that, I want to become the man who I want to be rather than accomplish the things I want to accomplish.

Like seeing tragedy unfold around you, it makes you reassess what’s important.

And so I feel like that’s what that verse leads into.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

All right.

So the next song I selected is called My Town.

My Town came out in 2002.

And the interesting thing about My Town in relation to the other songs we’re going to talk about, is that it is the only one of the songs that I’ve selected that did not go to number one on the radio.

This one peaked at number five.

But definitely one of their first big hits.

But this song is all about nostalgia.

It’s all about being proud for where you came from.

And the guy kind of, the song, he starts talking about how he didn’t really appreciate it, and then came back and settled down, and how proud he is of where he came from, proud enough that he went back.

And as someone that grew up on a farm in a small, next to a small town, this song has just always hit me because yeah, I moved away, but I’m still proud of growing up in Iowa.

I’m still proud of being an Iowa farm boy, even though I’m in Kansas City.

And I think a lot of people can really identify with that history of growing up someplace and identifying with it and how it makes you the person that you are, no matter where you are.

Yeah, I think this one definitely still resonates with me, even though I’m definitely not from a small town.

I am from the suburbs of LA.

I’m from the Santa Clarita Valley, which has many more country music fans, I think, than where I live in LA now, or central LA.

I still have nostalgia for my hometown.

I think that’s why a lot of country songs that talk about the simple things and your history of a simpler life still resonates with me because even life as a kid is a lot simpler than life as an adult.

And so I definitely remember back in high school thinking, man, this place is boring.

We want to go to the city and do something exciting.

But now that I’m a little older, that seems every time we go visit, then my parents were thinking, you know, it would be pretty nice to raise our kids here actually.

Like maybe we’ll move back someday.

So that’s always in the back of my mind.

And yeah, there’s just a lot of joy and simple things and simple life that you had when you were younger.

I think the song too, that’s like what I didn’t appreciate about Montgomery Gentry as a duo was how different their voices are.

And he’s got that like real deep kind of raspy voice.

He’s got that big baritone and Troy just, he could hit the high notes.

Yeah.

So that’s what I think really makes them unique.

Even when you’re comparing them to some of the other duos out there, you can really tell who’s singing just part of the song.

And they change it up.

I like Brooks and Dunn as a duo.

Grew up with a lot of their songs in the 80s and 90s.

But very seldom did Kicks ever get to sing.

Yeah, there’s some good balance.

There’s a newer band out called Muscadine Bloodline.

I’ve heard of them.

Yeah, they treat off singing a lot too, which I think is pretty cool about that.

And their voices are also really different.

So I think it just makes it interesting.

I like the chorus of this song too.

It’s very chantable.

Until you get to the I’ll be honest too, that part just gets a little old.

But yeah.

All right.

We can agree on that.

We can agree on that.

Not a fan of this.

Not a fan of that.

You don’t chant that part or in the car.

My head probably bobs from side to side, but as I’m driving down the road, but no, I’m not chanting by any means.

Not at all.

All right.

So after you’re done chanting, na, na, na, na, na.

There it is.

See, you can do it.

Oh, I can still do it.

But all right.

The next song.

This is probably, you can make an argument that, shoot, I don’t know.

Definitely on the deeper side.

Something to be proud of.

Came out in 2005.

Again, hit number one.

But this song is just, again, it’s another life story song.

But my big takeaway from this song is, no matter where you are, no matter what you do, what you’re doing, there is someone somewhere, probably a parental figure, but they’re still going to be proud of it.

They’re going to be proud of what you have achieved, because achievement is just relative.

Now, this song talks about how the kid goes to his dad and he just says, hey, you’re still proud of me even though I didn’t do what you want.

Dad was like, you’re raising a family and you’re working hard, you’re taking care of people and that’s what matters to bring it all home.

This song has a little extra meaning right now, because there’s one line and very toward the beginning, talks about son graduating college was mama’s dream.

But with Luke going off to college, that particular line has been hitting me these last couple of times because he’s got a plan.

And whether or not we’re supportive of his plan, but whether or not his plan happens the way he envisions or we’re helping him to envision, it doesn’t matter because it’s still his plan.

And he’s still our son, and we’re still extremely proud of him.

I love that perspective, man.

That’s what I hope that I can be consistent with as my kids get older, that I’m not going to project some expectation of them.

Based on my own desires for them, I want them to do what they want to do.

I think a hard place to get to as a parent.

It is.

I’m not going to lie to you.

It is because as parents, we have dreams and we have ideas based on our hindsight being 2020 and how we see our kids, and what they’re maybe interested in or what they’re suited to.

Then when they don’t necessarily see things the same way, you’re like, they just don’t get it.

No, they get it.

They get it for them.

They don’t get it for you.

That’s what I feel like makes this song a lot deeper than I remembered it back when I first heard it.

Because it is like comparing the parents’ experience.

The dad in this song has literal war stories that he’s telling.

And so it’s that classic, we had it so tough and we did so much in our generation.

You kids are soft.

But the second verse isn’t more expected to go.

It’s not, I told you so.

You’re not as tough as we are as parents.

No, it’s I do accept you as who you are.

And you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished on your own terms.

And this song really just sets up the last song on the list.

Because when you get to that point, you realize how lucky you are.

So Lucky Man is the song I’m going to wrap this up with, because it’s a reminder of how you need to just settle down, appreciate what you have, appreciate what’s important, reflect on the little things in life that give you a reason to celebrate.

Pure and simple.

This song came out right after I started working after college.

And it was right when I was starting to listen to country music for the first time, my commute’s home from work at a job that I didn’t always like very much.

I don’t think hardly anybody ever likes their first job.

Yeah, that’s true.

But that first line really hits me today.

And I think I remember hearing, it could have been this song on my drive home when I was, had a particularly not enjoyable day at work.

And it says, I have days when I hate my job.

And I had a lot of days like that back in the day.

This is like my favorite type of country song.

I have a whole list of inconveniences, but a redeeming positive spin at the end.

I don’t remember exactly where I was when I heard the song back in my 20s.

But this is one of their songs that did hit me, similar to One In Every Crowd, where I was complaining a lot about my first job and hear a song like this.

And it puts everything into perspective, focusing on the simple things and really the blessings that you have.

Because you can get wrapped up in whatever inconvenience is happening.

Yeah.

Because unfortunately, we as humans seem to always find ourselves drawn to the negative.

And we have to stop.

And we have to pull ourselves out of it sometimes, by focusing on what we do have that is going for us.

When he talks about it, it’s the last verse, you know?

His truck’s running, his heart’s ticking, he’s got a good woman’s loving, and that makes his bad days not that bad.

Perfect song for when you’re feeling a little down.

Also a good one to kind of end the Montgomery Gentry, walks through your life, you reminisce more as you get older, and you think back on the good times.

We have more to look back on as we get older and later in life.

More that we can appreciate and realize how lucky we are.

I agree.

Anytime they pop up on my Pandora or Spotify feed or whatever, I’m always finding a new way to relate based on my current life experiences.

They have staying power, which I’m glad because there’s not going to ever be anymore, unfortunately.

I’m glad you reintroduced me to Montgomery Gentry in this phase of life because I want to go look a little deeper into their catalog now, now that I remembered who they are.

The country music era that I may have missed in the 90s and the early 2000s when I was busy on it.

Playing volleyball?

Yeah, playing exactly.

Playing volleyball and trying to impress my wife’s family.

You must have done a pretty good job because however many years and three kids later, she still let you hang out and record podcasts in your garage.

That’s right.

Yeah, we have staying power also.

There you go.

All right, everybody.

Thank you so much for listening.

I hope I was able to do Montgomery Gentry justice for you all because I said, this artist means a lot to me.

I hope I didn’t wax too poetically on it and you’re able just to give them a shot like Dave was able to do and find something in their catalog that works from you.

Speaking of catalogs, if you want to go back and listen to any of our back episodes, go to our website countrymusicdads.com.

All of the episode links are there.

The playlist links are there.

That will take you to Spotify.

The Facebook and Instagram links are probably on there as well or are they?

I don’t know.

Are those on the website?

You’re the webmaster.

Okay, very good.

Fine.

You can go to our Facebook and Instagram page and from the website as well.

And as we always say, we love and encourage feedback.

So send us anything that you deem appropriate to countrymusicdads.gmail.com.

And thank you for listening.

We appreciate you.

All right.

Until next time.

I always struggle with that last line, but it just ends up just being like a wounded duck falling out of the sky, and I don’t know.

Back to the ducks.

Full circle, man.

Well done.

Yeah, there we go.

No ducks were wounded in the Peabody Hotel experience.

No, none at all.

All right, I better sign off, vacate the garage.

You gotta let your breadwinner.

Yeah, we need bread.

Exactly.

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