Home » The Mustache Rides Again: Greatest ‘Staches in Country Music (and Beyond)

Country Music, culture, Dad Life, Masculinity

The Mustache Rides Again: Greatest ‘Staches in Country Music (and Beyond)

This week, the Dads talk about a growing trend in country music and on the faces of men everywhere: the mustache. While facial hair is divisive, this episode takes a light-hearted view of the ‘stache, the correlation between masculinity in society and the prevalence of mustachioed individuals and much more. This is just one long “Change My Mind” segment, and you won’t be disappointed. 

Show Notes:

1:45 – The History of the mustache, pogonotrophy and some notable ‘staches from history. There are several horrible dad jokes about facial hair throughout this section. 

6:30 – The place of the mustache in pop culture from the Fu Manchu to the handlebar to Tom Selleck, everyone’s favorite short-short-wearing Private Eye. 

11:52 – The mustache is a symbol of Dad Life. Dave comes from a long line of mustachioed dads. 

13:33 – A mustache is an intentional act of manliness and all that is baked into that statement. In the end, men grow mustaches for their fellow men. 

16:11 – The evolution of the mustache in modern society, the impact of Movember and shifts in culture. 

17:50 – The great (and not so great) mustaches of country music. And for some reason, Dave brought up Chris Gaines in relation to Garth Brooks. 

29:44 – Change My Mind: Here it comes down to this — will Dave change Donnie’s mind about the ‘stache?

35:54 – The Dad Life Sound Check 

Mustaches Mentioned in this Episode:

Thank you for listening. The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you use. If you want to see new episodes and more content delivered straight to your email inbox, please subscribe to our newsletter: countrymusicdads.substack.com. You can find everything we do on our website: countrymusicdads.com. And we’d love to hear what you think, so send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram @countrymusicdads, or via email countrymusicdads@gmail.com.

 Musical Mustache References:

Transcript

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

We’re driving a highly subjective, comically contrarian, often irreverent conversation about fatherhood and country music for people who have a passion for both.

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

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

This week, we cover a growing trend that we’re seeing in country music.

And on the faces of men everywhere, we’re talking about the mustache.

Facial hair is divisive.

See, I’ve been wearing a beard almost constantly now for about four years.

This particular beard was born out of laziness.

The pandemic brought out whiskers on many a dad.

The pursuit of keeping our families healthy, safe, educated, entertained, and not killing each other pushed personal hygiene aside.

Let’s be real, the pandemic led to less than healthy approaches to grooming for many of us.

But I like the way my beard looks.

And despite the gray, I like that it adds a little bit of country to my look.

However, it seems that with the comeback of 90s country, the mustache has also risen from the ash heap of history.

As you know, my trusty co-host, Dave, has embraced this look.

And in this episode, we will explore the power of the mustache, its place in country music, and I ask my friend and co-host to change my mind about wearing this kind of facial hair.

I really can’t wait.

Yeah, it’s gonna be something.

Before we get into that, though, we should talk about some of the history of the mustache.

Men have always had facial hair, of course.

We have long styled it in the shapes.

History has taught us this.

There is actually a term, Pogonotrophy, which is the art of cultivating facial hair that goes back pretty much to the beginning of recorded history.

And there are some really delightful images of some of the earliest mustaches.

One of my favorites, the Egyptian Prince Rahotep from the Fourth Dynasty, 2500 BC, they have the statue from his tomb at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

And there is clearly a stash, a well-groomed stash, painted across his upper lip, which I think is awesome because this is the form that they would want to take in the afterlife for all of eternity.

They would imagine themselves or the artist would imagine them as a younger person kind of in their prime.

And I love that Prince Rahotep and probably a lot of the Egyptian royalty of the time, they felt like the mustache was very important to have for all of eternity.

Yeah, he looked like an Egyptian John Waters.

There you go.

Another of my savers that we found, Pazarik Horseman, who were from the Altai Mountains in Siberia.

There’s this great painting of one of these gentlemen on horseback.

And he’s got a curl to his mustache.

And he looks like he’s having a great time doing whatever they did on horseback back in Siberia.

This is from 300 BC.

So even back then, they were twisting the ends of the mustache like I’m trying to do at the moment.

We’ll link this image in the shout outs.

If I were to get a tattoo, it might be of this Pezarek horseman.

I should probably find out a little bit more about what these people did before I do that.

But the look is dialed in and very aspirational for me.

Like actually timeless.

I can say that I’m looking to antiquity for my inspiration.

Before the Common Era, in fact.

It’s incredible.

Then there are many others and several throughout history were like really quite fantastic.

But those two were two of my favorites as well as we were looking back.

I don’t remember mustaches in the history books, but that’s revisionist history.

They really shaved something off of the truth.

It’s such a shame.

So as we get into the modern era, military men were often required to wear their facial hair in particular ways, often based on rank.

This was my favorite piece that we found in this, is that knights had their armor fashioned to frame their glorious whiskers.

So according to a 2014 BBC article in the 14th century, Edward, Prince of Wales was commemorated by an effigy in his tomb in the Canterbury Cathedral and it shows the prince in full battle dress with chain mail encasing his face and neck, but allowing his long mustache to flow over the top.

I thought that was pretty awesome.

That sounds like it’s straight out of Monty Python.

It does.

Like a little gap so that your mustache can hang out.

He is quite dead though.

Well done.

Thank you.

Oh man.

Yeah, I found that kind of interesting with the military.

My grandfather was a career marine, and so he was always clean shaven.

From all the pictures, he was clean shaven by design.

And when I grew my first beard, my grandmother, his wife, was appalled at my look because she was accustomed to, this is how you should be.

But it hasn’t always been that way.

Obviously, your grandfather probably was in the military post-World War I.

The time of the crumb duster in the military time period ended in World War I because the scruff got in the way of gas masks.

And that’s where kind of the fascination from European theater military men, they stopped wearing mustaches at that time and any sort of facial hair because, you know, better to shave than to be dead.

How true.

Yes.

Well, yeah, I guess that ended the era.

I remember the Civil War portraits of these mustaches that would merge into the sideburns for some of these generals.

There’s lots of different styles back then that we lost when chemical warfare came into play.

That was really one of the most troubling aspects of chemical warfare.

Yeah.

You’re probably right.

Or else of the mustache.

Oh, man.

It would be funny if it wasn’t such a possibility today, wouldn’t it?

Yes.

Oh, boy.

Not just in true history, but in pop culture and in the modern era, the mustache has been a big part of the culture.

The mustache tells stories, good guys, bad guys, all that stuff.

And the different types of mustaches had different roles.

The Fu Manchu gained its name in Western culture from a fictional character called Dr.

Fu Manch.

From the British author, Sax Rohmer, he first appeared in 1913.

The doctor was anything but a good doctor.

He was portrayed as an evil, intelligent, resourceful Chinese criminal mastermind.

There was just a little bit of racism in that.

What are you going to do?

You had Charlie Chaplin and that other guy that wore the toothbrush mustache.

That other guy was a really not such good person.

He sucked.

And then, you know, got Clark Gable, Roy Rogers, and some other Hollywood heartthrobs, as well as hunks on horseback.

They sported mustaches.

At some point, it did not signify the villain.

The villain cut, twisting his mustache as he thought about his diabolical schemes.

It became kind of a symbol of the heroes at some point.

Yes.

And speaking of heroes, how can we talk about mustaches without Tom Selleck?

What a man.

The short shorts, the incredible Hawaiian shirts, the perfect mustachioed grin, and somehow he had a magnum in his gym shorts.

It’s really impressive, you got to say.

It’s like that guy was wearing like Sophie shorts and he pulled out a gun that was like the size of a small salmon.

And it was like he was able to go through and have a helicopter ride.

I mean, that was a great show.

What a beautiful idea.

I have nothing to add.

It’s true.

A magnum in Tom Selleck’s pants.

Oh, man.

I love that shot.

There’s tons of iconic facial hair.

He is obviously an aspirational figure.

I don’t know if there’s a better example or a more impressive example of that big thick mustache and groucho marks.

Had another big one underneath his cigar.

Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds.

Gotta love Burt.

Who else made your list, Donnie?

I’m a big fan of Pedro Pescal.

I think he’s kind of a pretty cool dude, and he’s got a very respectable mustache.

I feel like it’s tasteful.

He’s kind of like modern day aspirational for middle-aged guys above like us.

He’s a sex symbol.

We still got time.

All it takes is the mustache.

Yeah, and a few other things.

But I think there’s something about someone who feels comfortable in it.

There’s some also less obvious sex symbols, Nick Offerman.

It’s another example of a man that you want to be or an aura you would like to give.

The stereotypical, highly masculine, meat-eating dude.

Yes.

Of course, he’s got a mustache.

Woodworking too.

I would also throw in Yosemite Sam.

I really respect his mustache.

It is huge and fantastic.

You can’t get a bigger mustache than Yosemite.

No, it’s the most incredible.

He’s not someone to aspire to be, but someone to laugh at.

And that’s an important part of culture as well, is to laugh at things.

Yosemite Sam is just like the most ridiculous of characters.

His mustache that goes down to his ankles.

Even though he’s like a small, very angry man with six shooters, but as a cartoon, that’s okay.

And as the cartoon version of a Western gunslinger, I think it’s very notable that his main feature I guess he’s got two main features.

He’s got the giant mustache and the giant hat.

And some of my favorite mustaches, again, aspirational.

Every character in Tombstone.

And they’re all based on real people.

And if you look up photos from the time of Doc Holliday and White Earp, they’ve got these wonderful mustaches.

But somehow while they were out there dealing with all the hardships on the frontier, the death and destruction and violence, they had the time and the desire to make those stashes really pop.

They had a lot of time on their hands.

I guess you’re right.

They didn’t have to podcast.

I would like to give a shout out to a Canadian brother, Alex Trebek.

I grew up watching Jeopardy.

And I was a little bummed when he shaved his mustache, I have to say.

His last years were Sans’ mustache.

He was a fixture in my household, the greatest trivia show of all time.

There’s something about the presence of Trebek and his mustache every single day on your TV that just brought comfort after school.

As I was thinking about the place of the mustache and culture and in my life, a lot of it has to do with nostalgia and how I grew up.

And so I was thinking about the 90s a lot.

And we’ll talk more about the 90s when we start talking about Country Music.

Carl Weathers was everywhere in the 90s with his very consistent, well-groomed mustache.

You got Goose and Top Gun.

I think he was the only one of those guys with facial hair.

Everybody else is clean shaven.

But Goose’s mustache is very memorable.

I don’t know.

Donnie, see, to me, mustaches have always been a symbol of dad life.

I don’t know if you had the same kind of memory.

I was trying to think of other famous dads with mustaches.

And I assumed that it was there were TV dads, people like Carl Winslow from Family Matters.

That’s solid.

He had a good mustache.

But he was a cop.

He had a cop mustache.

Yeah, I guess so.

It wasn’t his dad aspects.

He definitely had a policeman’s mustache.

Yeah, that was a policeman’s costume.

I’m starting to realize that I associate the mustache with dads because my dad had a mustache.

And his dad had a mustache.

And he had a wonderful white handlebar mustache, too.

It was glorious.

So I don’t know if it’s actually a dad thing or if it’s just I’m reaching the pinnacle of my dad life that I was always meant to achieve with my mustache.

My dad never had facial hair.

He always was clean shaven.

So that wasn’t something in my life at home.

But I always thought it was pretty cool.

The beard definitely came in for me as a point of laziness but is now a part of me.

The beard, it grows on you.

I have a lot to stay both out of laziness, but also I do really like it.

As I noted at the beginning, I like how it looks.

Become a part of my persona.

There comes a point, right, especially for a guy like me who has no hair on top.

There’s not a lot of stuff that you can do as a cis-gendered man, doing his thing as a dad to change up the way that you’re looking.

Facial hair is one of those things that you can play around with a lot.

There’s this article in Fatherly from right before the pandemic that I thought was interesting.

One of the points it made is that you can’t grow a mustache by accident.

It doesn’t just grow on you unless you’re like me at 12 years old, and that was a really unfortunate mustache to grow.

Yes, and as an adult, you do it on purpose.

You shave it in, like no one is just wakes up and it’s, oh, whoops, I forgot to shave and therefore, here’s this big glorious mustache on my face.

You get this when you forget to shave.

Yeah, exactly.

And the studies have shown that women are not more attracted to men with mustaches.

So really, men grow mustaches at order to try to assert dominance over their fellow men.

And what’s interesting, some of these scholars of the mustache, and we found the scholar of the blue jeans.

There are scholars of the beard and the mustache out there as well.

We aren’t interviewing them today, unfortunately, maybe for a future episode.

This one really takes off.

Some of these mustache historians are saying that the mustache goes out of fashion when this concept of the mustache as performative masculinity doesn’t have an audience.

And at a time like this, when there’s been lots of debates in the public arena about gender, the status of men in our modern society, and the energy behind getting back to traditional masculine stereotypes, maybe it makes sense that the mustache is having this renaissance in modern culture and with young men.

An interesting point, and it was something that I caught on to.

I was reading one of these articles and it was on a beard and mustache grooming site.

So it was a little bit more snarky than it was academic.

But it was joking around with that, is that the idea that the mustache is for you, it’s not for anybody else.

If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t wear it.

It’s not going to, like you said, studies have shown women aren’t interested in it.

I know my wife isn’t.

And I think that there’s something to be said about this being for you and for your own expression.

And perhaps twisting that to a more positive place.

The idea that you should feel comfortable in what you’re wearing and what you want to wear and how you want to express yourself.

And if that means shaping a mustache, then you shape a moustache and you just go with it.

And I think that there’s nothing wrong with that.

And it’s interesting that history has shown that beards come back when there are these questions or a global pandemic when, you know, there’s no reason to shave at all.

I feel like when we were coming of age, mustaches definitely had a negative connotation.

This is like the porn stash or the creepy guy at the park.

Wearing a mustache was like a joke.

That’s why Movember worked as a charity.

That was the first time I grew a mustache was during Movember.

You grow a mustache for a month to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health issues.

You do that by growing a mustache because why else would you grow a mustache?

It looks ridiculous.

That was part of the appeal.

I’m going to look ridiculous.

People are going to wonder what’s going on with me.

What is that thing on your face?

And they’ll ask questions about it and then you have a reason to talk about the charity.

I wonder now when it’s rising in popularity in my Gen Z, if the novelty of growing a mustache for November is going to have the same appeal and the same impact.

That’s an interesting question and I think that the idea of kind of novelty, charity, awareness issues perhaps have jumped shark just a bit over the past 15-ish years.

There are websites dedicated to what day is it type of things.

Left-handed baseball player awareness day, things like that.

Perhaps the November moment is over because of this shift in facial hair awareness.

So who knows?

But we can revisit this when it’s time to grow for a cause.

Yeah, I haven’t participated in the cause in a while.

And really if I was this year, I don’t know what I would do.

Go for the extension.

I go Salvador Dali and make it extend past my face.

We are a Country Music podcast and so we got to talk a little bit about some of the great mustaches in country music today and throughout history.

We’ll jump in to the current Lip Hair Jockeys.

I really think Riley Green’s mustache is quite nice.

He’s had his fair share of controversy right now, but we can all agree the man has, both very large hands and a very nice mustache.

Say what you want about the other stuff that’s going on.

Perhaps he’s made some mistakes.

Perhaps he said some things he shouldn’t have to members of his entourage, of the women in his life.

All of that aside, the man’s got a nice mustache.

That’s it.

That’s all I’m going to say.

He does.

He does.

Of today’s stars, I feel like he is the standard bearer.

Part of it is that he’s a really good-looking dude.

He really is.

Kim did not know who Riley Green was, and so probably against my better judgment, I showed her and she was like, okay, I can see why people think he’s hot.

She thought maybe I’d show her a lot of the country stars.

People just because they’re stars, people are attracted to them.

But Riley Green, he’s a good looking man.

Objectively good-looking man, yes.

Mustache, no mustache, whatever.

With or without facial hair, I am comfortable enough to say that he’s a good-looking man.

It is very impressive, his mustache, as well as his debonair smile.

Moving on, perhaps the king of the comeback of the 90s, Mr.

Zach TopBuzzing does have a lovely mustache.

Here’s my question for you about Zach TopBuzzing, because, yes, Zach Top has very clean brush-style comb, which you call that kind, comb-style mustache.

How much does Zach Top’s mustache add to the allure of his 90s throwback sound?

I actually think that’s what is making the sound.

I don’t think it’s him singing.

Have you paid attention?

Are his lips moving when he sings?

No, I don’t think so.

It’s all out of the mustache.

One of the websites had him do a, identify this 90s singer by the mustache, and he got 100 percent.

He was a little bit thrown by his own picture in the mix.

He’s like, I think that’s me.

So, yeah, the look would not be complete without the mustache.

And he’d also look 12, but that’s a different story.

When I first heard of him, you look him up, you see the album cover, and that mustache is there, and you’re like, who is this guy?

It draws you in to experience more of what Zach Top’s putting out there.

Another guy in that general space is Braxton Keith, whose mustache is quite well-shaped and fun.

I actually think that his is not so much 90s, a much more Gen Z-style, highly-fashioned mustache.

His music is very much of the 90s, but with a little bit more of a modern twist than I would say what you hear from Zack Tops.

Also a little bit of a Texas dance hall vibe that he has going on, but it’s a nice mustache.

Braxton Keith is sporting some very fine whiskers, I must say.

That takes a lot of work as someone who has newly adopted the mustache.

To do what Braxton Keith is doing, takes precision, takes style, takes an eye for design.

He’s doing a great job.

Shout out to Braxton on his pointy mustache.

Cluedo Cordero, the frontman for Flatland Cavalry.

He’s usually sporting a mustache.

That looks very natural on him.

He’s like one of those guys that if he doesn’t have a mustache, it looks a little odd.

Like he’s got the baby face, kind of like Zach TopBuzzing.

He’s got this baby face, like the mustache.

It’s almost like a costume he wears as the performer.

Coulter Wall, another big bushy mustache.

Usually he’s got the beard going also, but that mustache, it’s…

Stands apart.

Yeah, it really dominates the whole facial hair experience for Coulter.

Yeah, it feels like he has that on at all times.

And then he sheers himself for the summer as he presents himself as a rancher.

So perhaps during the winter he keeps the beard for warmth, and then he goes out and gets the sheers as he’s doing whatever he does.

I can see that.

It’s almost walrus-y.

It’s very big.

Yeah, I was gonna say the Lorax.

It’s got the Lorax look.

Coulter Wall as the Lorax.

I could see that working.

We missed that one in our Children’s Book episode.

Indeed.

But Coulter Wall reciting the lines of the Lorax, I would pay to see that.

It would be solid.

This gives me an opportunity to make fun of Morgan Wallen, so I’m going to.

The man looks like he’s wearing a mustache of someone who owes someone else money.

He just needs a few more days to get it.

Like, man, I got the money, man.

I got the money.

I just need a couple days.

I just need a couple days.

That’s what his mustache looks like.

It’s just like, he’s trying, and it’s just gross.

It’s like, just like a whisper of a mustache.

It almost makes you like look a little closer.

Do you have a little schmutz on you?

Is it there?

You got a little crumbs.

I see that around town, too.

It feels like you didn’t go all in on your mustache.

It’s so thin, so small.

Who am I to judge another man’s ability to grow facial hair?

But it’s not about the ability, it’s about the choice, man.

If we’re talking about performative masculinity, we might as well dive into it.

Zach Bryan also has mustaches.

His seems like it’s a mustache born from lazy ass.

I don’t know if there’s like technique, there’s no Brex and Keith level attention to what’s going on there.

It just kind of appears and then it’s gone in a wisp.

Jumping into the classics, Allen Jackson.

He has the Tom Selleck mustache of country music.

I gotta say it, it is fluid.

You can’t beat, you can’t beat Allen Jackson.

He has some competition, because, Zach, especially in his heyday in the 90s.

There were many a mustache.

Maybe they were Allen Jackson copycats.

Don’t quote us on that, but it’s possible.

I don’t know who the leader in facial hair style was back then.

Allen Jackson was a standard bearer.

Kicks Brooks.

Brooks and Donne consistently sported the stash throughout the years, still does it today.

Joe Diffie is another iconic mustache.

He’s no longer with us, but every image of Joe Diffie has that brush style mustache.

It makes me wonder if he had a lip.

That’s how big that is.

It’s almost like the mustache you put on at Mr.

Potato Head.

That’s how thick that was.

It was like boom, full lip caterpillar.

It was unbelievable.

An inspiration, both his songwriting and his visual.

Aaron Tippen, someone I found also who has consistently kept with the mustache even when it went out of fashion.

It’s always the stash.

I don’t know a lot about Aaron Tippen, but he kept on popping up in my searches.

Always with the stash, unlike some of the other guys from the 90s, some of Alan Jackson’s contemporaries, who have since gone with beards throughout the years.

People like Tim McGraw, who I consider more, he’s more of a goatee type of guy.

Especially now.

Yeah, right now, he’s just…

It’s all muscles.

I don’t even know if he has hair on his body.

But back when he was a little more of just like a normal looking dude, back in the 90s, he did have a mustache curled around the edges.

He was the precursor to the goatee later on.

Trace Adkins also wouldn’t be the first person that comes to mind when you think of a country star with a mustache, but in the 90s, Trace Adkins, every light in the house is on.

He’s definitely walking around that house, turning all the lights on with a mustache on.

Also Tracy Lawrence, somebody else that I consider more of a beard guy right now.

But man, 90s Tracy Lawrence to me, he kind of rivals Alan Jackson with the 90s look.

He’s got the long flowing blonde mullet, thick stache, and he’s got this twinkle in his eye that honestly, it reminds me, Zach TopBuzzing.

There’s some playfulness there that Alan Jackson, he’s got kind of more of the cool mustache and mullet combo.

Tracy Lawrence is like, he’s going to get in some trouble.

People keep on joking about how Zach TopBuzzing, he looks so much like Alan Jackson.

He might be Alan Jackson’s long lost son.

I think you could make a case that Zach TopBuzzing might be Tracy Lawrence’s son, based on these 90s photos.

You heard it here first, folks.

That’s it.

Write it down.

Or at least in 30 years, Zach Top might look more like Tracy Lawrence than Alan Jackson.

Probably more accurate.

Can’t talk about the 90s and country music and facial hair, I guess, without talking about Garth Brooks.

Look, we had talked a little bit about facial hair sometimes being creepy.

It kind of goes without saying that Garth is a little bit creepy.

The goatee that he sports these days really makes me uncomfortable.

Putting all of the very real allegations aside for a second to joke about his facial hair is creepy.

It is a creepy look.

Embrace the beard, go with the mustache, but like the very square-looking, because he’s got a big head.

Garth Brooks, real big.

It’s like straight lines, right angles.

It’s not good.

So would you prefer the Garth Brooks square goatee over the Chris Gaines soul patch?

They’re not the same person.

I’m just putting that out there.

I don’t know where I got that.

We’re talking about facial hair.

A pop and like pop genius, not a country star.

It’s a completely different person.

I’m sorry.

I’m totally off-topic.

Yeah.

We can’t go off-genre here.

All righty.

I think we have waited long enough.

The foundation is set, Dave.

We went over the history.

We went over the country music.

We went over some of the great mustaches and some of the less-than-great mustaches.

So now it’s time to get to the core of this episode, the massive Change My Mind.

Because in a world where flexibility and opinion is seen as weakness, perhaps even that inflexibility is that performative masculinity.

We want to model good behavior to our kids and to all of you listeners as we respectfully and humorously try to change each other’s minds about pressing issues of country music, fatherhood, and facial hair.

So now Dave, it’s time.

You need to change my mind about the mustache.

I’ve been looking forward to this for several months as I’ve ventured out into the unknown with this mustache, but I love it.

And Donnie, by the way, I understand your reluctance to shave and the mustache because I mentioned it before, as millennials, we grew up at a time when mustaches were severely out of fashion, even creepy.

It was something you would grow if you lost a bet or you wanted to get a laugh.

No one seriously sported a mustache in our generation.

But the mustache is back, Donnie, thanks to our good friends in Gen Z.

And it makes sense that the younger generation would be driving what’s cool in popular culture.

And it made it safe for us to turn back the clock and sport our mustaches again.

So we just talked about all the young bucks in country music who have mustaches now.

It’s true in public too when you’re out and about.

Mustaches are everywhere, so it’s not a novelty.

People aren’t going to think that you’re a weirdo in case you were worried about that.

You’re not alone if you go out with a mustache these days.

And maybe it is performative masculinity, but we’re living in the world of social media, Donnie.

And look at me culture, something that Gen Z is very comfortable with and very good at.

And sometimes it seems like life itself is nothing more than a series of performances.

So why not come prepared for your time on stage with a costume?

And that costume, you can design it, you can tend it, you can trim it, you can fashion it however you’d like until it’s an extension of your personality.

Or at least the one that you want everyone else to think that you have.

And speaking of appearance versus reality, that brings me to the main reason I think that you, Donnie, should give the mustache a try.

It’s that when you shave the beard leaving only the mustache, you look younger.

You just do.

And I have firsthand experience because the day after I shaved my beard leaving my mustache, I went to Costco and as I often do, I checked out with about 150 beers and the clerk asked me for my ID.

And that hadn’t happened in years, maybe a decade.

I got carded at Costco.

She thought that I might be 20.

That’s how youthful I look with my mustache.

I do look younger and stronger and more virile than I steal these days.

And that Donnie C.

Cutler is what a mustache can do for you.

Wow.

Well, Dave, I think…

You’ve changed my mind.

Yes.

You look fantastic.

And oh, so useful.

Yeah, except for the little white whiskers at the end here.

I think it’s an ode to the early mid-40s.

Yeah, you gotta trim those, take care of those.

They’re easy.

A lot less of those in the mustache than in the beard.

Oh, trust me.

With the Hawaiian shirt and the mustache now, I’m getting Magnum PI vibes.

Don’t stand up.

I don’t want to see what you’re wearing, how short your shorts are right now.

They got shorter as I shaved.

There’s actually like a Vietnam era helicopter landing in my backyard right this second.

But yeah, I think, look, it’s fun.

I don’t know how long this will last as it is going to be jarring when I wake up tomorrow morning and look in the mirror and be like, what did I do?

But it’s fun.

The thing that I think will be the hardest thing to keep going on this beyond my wife telling me I can sleep downstairs is that it’s a lot of work to shave this much and not miss, right?

You got to keep the angle right.

It is.

Keep it going.

And in all seriousness, I have found it to be almost like acquiring a new hobby.

I’ve had to watch like some YouTube videos and buy some product and try to figure out like, what should this thing look like?

And you’ve mentioned it before.

It’s entirely for you.

This is my face and no one’s going to tell me what my mustache should look like.

It’s all about tweaking it and getting it just right.

So I’m looking forward to all the fun you’re going to have for the next 90 minutes.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I have permission to keep it for a few days as I want to wear it for a little bit and get a feel for it.

I also want to go over to my mom’s house and be like, hey, and she will totally freak out, which is not always the goal of the things that I do in life, but they’re the little things that keep you going.

It is a little creepy.

I love to hear what your kids think about it because my kids hated it as soon as I showed up, like, grow the beard now.

I’m like, that’s not how it works.

No.

After what could be a jarring recurring segment regarding my facial hair, we will go to a less jarring recurring segment called The Dad Life Soundcheck.

We like to pick a song, something that’s speaking to us right now.

Could be about fatherhood, could be about life, and sometimes it’s just what the moment strikes you.

Dave, tell me about what’s speaking to you right now.

In honor of the transformation that I feel like I’ve had with becoming a guy with a mustache.

I’m going with Brand New Man by Brooks and Dunn.

Also to honor Kix Brooks and his decades long mustache.

We’re recording this week when my kids are at the equivalent of Sleepaway Camp.

My parents take them for a week for the church camp in their town and so I use that week as kind of my mid-year refresh.

Without the kids here, it just helps me catch up on things and focus on some self-care and just do some things for myself.

At the start of the week, I feel like here’s my opportunity to start anew, become a brand new man, get those habits dialed in for the rest of the year until I get to the end of the week and I’m like…

I haven’t done any of those things.

Anyway, it’s early in the week right now, so I have hope and a good, happy Brooks and Dunson like this will hopefully carry me through.

Keep you going in that direction.

As we were thinking about this episode, I saw a post from a Canadian country and folk artist named Prince.

He was sporting mustache, so I was like, okay, I’ll take a look at this.

They’re everywhere, man.

They’re everywhere.

They’re everywhere.

And he’s also a dad in the song.

This is about how he and the mother of his child were no longer together.

Not something that I’ve ever had to experience, but the writing in Always Have What We Had is quite a beautiful song, and it’s very powerful.

But I felt a kinship to him, not based on the song, based on the fact that he recently bought a home and had to trim the hedges.

And as someone who has now taken over all the gardening in my house, or at my house rather, I really respect the fear and excitement of using a new power tool.

And pretty much I saw this video after I had to go bust out the trimmer and the blower and the shears and clean up the yard.

And I looked at the video, I was like, oh, that’s funny.

I feel you, man.

Then I went and dove back into his music.

And I was like, oh, I really like the song.

The song’s beautiful.

It’s…

Yeah, man.

If you were playing this song in the headphones while you’re doing the yard, I don’t know if I would be able to finish the yard.

I would probably just have to sit in the dirt for a little while and just ponder things and let it wash over me for a little bit.

It’s a little heavy.

I’m more of a podcast guy when I’m doing the yard.

I feel that the very soft and lovely tones of particular podcasts about Country Music and Dads helps me stay focused on giving a nice, clean cut to my hedges.

Check out our website at countrymusictads.com, sponsored by Trimming Your Hedges.

I hope you all learn something about The Mustache.

I hope you, too, will consider giving The Mustache a try.

Maybe for November, you have a couple of months to prepare for that and prepare your loved ones for that.

Until then, thank you for listening.

The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you use.

If you want to see new episodes and more content delivered straight to your email inbox, please subscribe to our newsletter, countrymusicdads.substack.com.

You can find everything we do on our website, countrymusicdads.com, and we’d love to hear what you think, so send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter, mustache grooming tips, to at CountryMusicDads on Instagram, or via email countrymusictads.gmail.com.

Until next time, whether you’re at the dance hall, the playground, or the schoolyard, or just folding some laundry, thanks for tuning in.

We’ll talk to you soon.

The Mustache.

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

Lost my spot.

The mustache has taken over.

My personality is now twirling at the end of my mustache.

I know, I can’t wait to see who you become now that you have this.

They call me White Tips.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

SpotifyApple PodcastsAmazon MusicPandoraYouTubeOvercastiHeartRadioCastBox
Facebook
YouTube
YouTube
Set Youtube Channel ID
Instagram

Archive

Verified by MonsterInsights