Home » New Year, Same Ole Me… But Different: How We’re Growing in 2025

Country Music, Dad Life, Song Analysis

New Year, Same Ole Me… But Different: How We’re Growing in 2025

Country Music Dads is BACK for Season 2! And we are kicking things off by talking about the change (or perhaps the lack thereof) that often accompanies the start of a new year. “New Year, new me” we say in January before seeing the “same ol’ me” staring back at us in the mirror in March. But is that such a bad thing? George Jones and Dierks Bentley provide support via two songs separated by 40 years but with the same name (different spelling), “Same Ole Me.” The Dads wrestle with self-improvement vs. self-acceptance, change vs. growth, and bro country vs. traditional country.  

We also discuss changes to the podcast itself. What is different for Season 2, what is staying the same, and what, Dear Listener, do you have to look forward to when you follow the Country Music Dads? True to form, it’ll be the same ole show, but a little bit different.

Show Notes:

  • 02:12: Dave shares a preview of Season 2 of the podcast: what has changed, what is staying the same, and how feedback from our early-adopting listeners has influenced our plans.
  • 06:26: Meet Country Music Dads’ new co-host: Donnie C. Cutler!
  • 08:22: Dave and Donnie discuss George Jones’ “Same Ole Me,” Dierks Bentley’s “Same ‘Ol Me,” how they think about goal-setting, personal change, and growth, and how their pursuit of improvement could influence their kids.
  • 35:02: The Dad Life Sound Check: Donnie shares how the competing pressures of life on the road and family life in Jeremy Pinnell’s “Night Time Eagle” resonate with his own attempts to balance self-care pursuits and being there for the bedtime routine. Dave admits that “Halo” is his favorite Beyonce song and that Joshua Ray Walker’s highly countrified rendition of it takes him back to a simpler time before kids when weddings were ragers.
  • 45:41: In our new, recurring segment called “Change My Mind,” Donnie posits that Bro Country is BAD for the country music genre. Self-proclaimed “recovering bro country aficionado” Dave attempts to convince him otherwise.

Mentioned in the Show:

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References:

Transcript

Whenever I catch myself yelling at them, I always go back and apologize to them because I think it’s a powerful thing to say, like, hey, I’m not perfect, and there’s things that I want to try to improve.

And hopefully they can see that and take that lesson upon themselves that, hey, they’re going to make mistakes, they’re going to wrestle with things, and that’s fine, that’s okay.

Hopefully we can wrestle with things side by side.

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.

And today, I’d like to wish you a happy belated new year from the Country Music Dads.

Now is about the time of year when we realize that our resolutions have all failed.

New year, new me, we say before changing very little.

To kick off season two, we’re talking about change.

Is it a healthy practice each year to assess your priorities and set new goals?

Or is it a futile pursuit that only leaves us frustrated come February or March?

Should we instead take our cue from country music, and from two songs in particular, both called Same Ole Me, and be happy, maybe even proud of the things that don’t change about us, both the good and the needs improvement parts?

What messages are we sending our kids when we wrestle with self-improvement versus self-acceptance?

But before we kick off that discussion, I want to share a little about what you can expect from season two of the podcast.

True to form, it’ll be the same old show, but a little bit different.

So the first thing I’ll mention is something that you might have noticed during the intro, if you’re a long-time listener of the show.

My co-host and co-founder Mick has stepped aside for this season.

So Mick and I started the podcast last year from scratch and we are very proud of what we created.

We released 20 episodes together, had some great conversations, and we think established a unique voice in the worlds of fatherhood and country music.

It was hard work, it was fun work, and I will always be grateful to Mick for building this thing with me.

As we started planning this next season, we realized that some of our objectives and priorities had shifted, and because of that, we felt it was the right time to make a change.

It was a great run with Mick, and I thank him for his leadership, his ideas, and his dedication to our project.

That’s one of the big things that is changing this year.

Let me talk about some of the things that are going to be the same.

Throughout last year, the first season, we gathered a bunch of feedback as much as we could from some of our early listeners.

I’ll call them the early adopters of the podcast, and we appreciate you, by the way, for giving us a shot and sticking with us.

What worked in season one?

What are the things that we’re going to continue in season two?

First off, the relatable stories about parenting and fatherhood from active, engaged dads.

We want to continue telling those stories.

A lot of those stories resonated with you either because you’re going through some of the same things, or you can imagine being in that boat someday with your kids.

So we want to continue elevating those stories about what it means to be a dad who is locked in and prioritizing their families and like-minded dads that are in our community.

The other thing, the country music side, discovery of new music and new artists.

We will continue to broadly explore the country music genre with the hope that we can help our listeners find the artists that speak most effectively to them.

Whether it’s a mainstream artist, an indie artist, a local artist, we want to connect you with the music that fires you up as a parent.

And I loved hearing from listeners saying, oh, I heard about this artist, or this is my new favorite song because I heard about it on the show.

I think that’s an awesome thing that we were able to do last year and we hope to continue to do.

And we also hope to continue to share our opinions and insights on both the music, the songs and the artists that are speaking to us, and also issues in the parenting world.

We featured guests last year with many varied opinions about Country Music and about parenting.

And those varied opinions, especially about the music, made it just so fun to talk about.

We want to continue to share our hot takes, our analysis of the multitudes of insights that are out there.

And it will be a fun season.

Some things we heard from our listeners also, they appreciated the educational content about the music.

They started to learn things.

Many listeners may not have been Country Music aficionados like us, but they appreciated learning new stuff about these artists and what their music means in the historical context.

We’ll be doing a little bit more of that.

A little more conflict and debate, and we’ll be talking a little bit more about that later.

You listen to a podcast like this because you want to maybe hear about positions and opinions on parenting that you hold, or you want to be challenged on those same opinions.

I think no one comes to a podcast like ours to relax and to be sedated by my voice.

Actually, my wife, the first time she listened to my voice on the podcast, she said, you sound sedate.

Can you like get a little more excited?

So I will try to get more excited, Kim, okay?

Also, longer form to provide some more value.

Some people were telling us that they wish the episodes were a little bit longer, and so we’re going to at least, we’re not going for two or three hour podcasts here, but we will experiment with different formats, dual hosts, maybe solo hosts, album reviews, artist interviews, interviews with parenting experts.

We want to try some new things and see what works best, and we would love to keep hearing from our listeners about what you like best.

So speaking of trying new things, I’d like to introduce my new co-host, Donnie C.

Cutler.

Hello, Donnie.

Hey, Dave.

And welcome.

Thank you.

And I should say welcome back.

Because Donnie actually was the very first guest that we had on the show back in season one, episode nine.

He joined us and it was very clear that he understood the mission.

He got it.

He is a dad who has a passion for both fatherhood and country music.

He lives in LA.

He is a writer.

He writes a Substack newsletter at countrycutler.substack.com.

And he is also a freelance writer with bylines in the Saddle Mountain Post and in the Honky Tonk Times.

And we are so excited to have him on board.

Thanks, Dave.

I’m really excited to be here.

I’m thrilled to be a host of this great podcast.

And I want to thank Mick as well for his leadership and the vision to bring this thing together.

I’m really pleased to be on board for season two.

Yes, sir.

So Donnie, with your writing, you have a lot of expertise in country music.

You have lots of strong opinions about country music, which I love.

No one has ever said that about me.

Yeah, I know.

It’ll be interesting.

One thing also that I think that you’re bringing is your own perspective as an involved and engaged dad, but one who is a working dad as opposed to myself.

I’m a stay-at-home dad.

So we’re coming at it from different angles, but have a lot of the same perspectives on what’s important.

It’ll be interesting to hear your take on things coming from that angle, maybe with a little bit less sleep.

Yeah.

Well, I have been known to fall asleep putting the kids to bed, usually getting a nice hour of sleep extra in between being awake again, doing some more things.

So I try to get my sleep where I can.

Yeah.

I wouldn’t call that extra sleep, but I guess if it makes you feel a little better about it.

Yeah.

You know, it’s all about perspective.

Yes.

Our topic is about change and the new year turning over.

Do you think that it is a healthy thing to set goals, new year’s resolutions, whatever you want to call it, and do you?

I think that it’s important to set goals for yourself, no matter what it is that you’re setting goals for or when you’re doing it.

I think it’s rough in January, honestly.

The coldest, darkest part of the year, and you’re like, I’m going to go to the gym.

That’s not going to work because you’re not going to want to get up and go, because the last three weeks have been about drinking and eating cake, so odds are you’re not going to be able to do that or keep up with that type of a thing.

I appreciate that perspective.

January is a hard month, just logistically to me.

There’s a lot going on.

The kids aren’t in school, and you’re asking us to just completely revamp our life.

Exactly.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the cycle of life either, especially with young kids in school or even older kids who are going back to college or something like that.

The middle of winter is not a great time for change.

I see spring is a better time.

As we’re getting closer to that, it’s warmer outside, you’re spending more time outside.

There’s more daylight.

There’s more hope for rebirth.

But I think it’s important to set yourself goals.

But ones that are ambitious yet achievable, especially as parents, you end up in this cycle of feeling like a failure if you can’t get everything done, especially in the age of social media.

You see all these super well-done, cleaned up acts.

And even today, where they’re parodying, there’s still that part of you that’s like, well, they’re even making fun of it.

They have enough time to make fun of it.

You feel like you can’t get it done.

But I think you have to set goals.

Even if you get frustrated by them, you figure out a way to get around that and continue working towards what you’re trying to achieve.

I agree that I try not to do it at the beginning of the year because there’s just too much going on and I just don’t have the capacity.

I also try not to get too wrapped up in the results and checking in and saying, did I achieve this or not?

Did I fail or not at whatever thing, whether it’s getting healthier with exercise, yelling less at the kids, whatever it is.

I think it is important to step back and assess where you are, in your personal life, your professional life, your family life.

I know Kim and I, I actually don’t remember the last time we did this, but whenever we have what we call like a family summit, it’s usually just the two of us over dinner or something.

And we can just talk about our dreams and goals and how the last year went and what things we might be missing or might want to do differently.

And it’s very, it’s not the corporate smart goals, we’re not putting metrics to it.

It’s just a joyful, exciting thing to talk about with your spouse about what we love for our family life to look like in the future.

And then we try to translate that to like the small changes.

I read Atomic Habits a while back, it’s all about the power of small changes to compound and change things eventually.

If you want to exercise more, just consider, what is it like if you are someone who exercises?

That means you exercise regularly, maybe just start with five minutes, ten minutes, and suddenly you’re someone who exercises, or what spoke to me when I was trying to write things on my blog or on the internet.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write.

And so just write a little bit each day, and suddenly, hey, I’m a writer, here’s the proof.

And it doesn’t have to be because I wrote a novel.

I’m a writer because that’s what I do with my time.

So just little things like that.

And I think that really resonates.

I’ll say this friend of mine, also a Country Music Dad, his name is Josh Heller.

He is an inspiration to me when it comes to going and doing things that you may not see as traditional.

He spent time teaching English in Mexico.

He traveled the world.

He was very bohemian, and it was just like something I thought was extremely cool, and I’ve always looked up to him as a role model for finding that kind of a balance.

When I first started doing country music stuff, more I guess you can call it professionally, for fun, the side hustle style of influencer or writer or whatever term you want to use, I put up on my bio that I was a pretend country music influencer.

He’s like, you got to take pretend out of that.

You’re not pretend, you’re doing it.

I think that’s something that we often get wrapped up in, in this imposter syndrome.

It’s rampant in parenting, it’s rampant in fatherhood, I think, especially with changing expectations and understanding of what we’re supposed to do.

And I think that when you start thinking about it that way, you’re not pretending, you’re not trying to do something extra.

It’s not your quote unquote real job.

It’s something you do and you should be happy with that.

And if that means that you’re making a change into that, you should own that change.

And I think that helps a lot.

And I think when you start thinking about some of these things that people put out, you’re like, I want to lose 50 pounds by July.

That’s ridiculous.

Most people aren’t going to drop about 10 pounds a month.

That’s impossible for a lot of people, especially as we get a little grayer in our beards and a little balder in our heads.

It’s just not something that we could do anymore without removing an arm or another limb.

Making something real, both achievable and you believing it, I think is something that makes those changes real and possible, as opposed to aspirational and highly annoying when they fail.

Breaking news, you are a country music influencer.

I’ve never heard you say that before.

What amazing growth you’ve experienced already.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Coming here as a Country Music Dad, I hope to country influence many people to my point of view when it comes to country music, and hopefully learn a few things from everyone else, too.

All right.

So I picked a couple of songs to talk about that I always feel like when the year turns, they pop into my head, or they pop onto my feet or something.

They seem to speak to me when I’m thinking about resolutions or assessing where my life is at.

And they give me some comfort because they’re both talking about some things about you are going to be the same.

Just be okay with that.

What did you think about the songs that I threw up there?

Same Old Me by George Jones is a classic.

It was written in 1982 by Paul Overstreet, and Overstreet’s written a lot of great country music.

Forever and Ever, Amen, Randy Travis.

She thinks my tractor’s sexy.

Hey, Kenny Chesney.

And, you know, Some Beach by Blake Shelton.

He has a range, this guy, Paul Overstreet, but George Jones, man, he opens his mouth in its country.

So I think that this song resonates for a number of reasons.

It’s well-written.

It’s crafted in such a way that speaks to anybody.

And it’s also George Jones.

And as Jones followers in the Which George is Your Favorite George?

I think we can appreciate that.

The thing about this song and a little bit different than the other one by Dierks Bentley, this one, I think, is a little hackneyed.

It’s a little old.

It feels old when you listen to this because it’s pretty much saying that you’re in love with the same person forever, which is great and something that we can appreciate.

But I don’t think that I’m the same person I was when I met my wife.

I don’t think my wife is the same person she was when we met.

And the part of the love that I think is useful and real is that we do change over time.

And I think the changes that we were talking about are intentional voluntary changes that we want to make and we want to see in ourselves.

The changes that happen to us by growing, experiencing, those things are out of our control a little bit.

When you juxtapose that to Same Ole Me by Dierks Bentley, who he wrote that song with John Randall and Luke Dick, both prolific songwriters for a lot of big name country folks that I really like a lot, like Miranda Lambert, The Brothers Osborne, Violent Cavalry and Dierks Bentley of course.

That song feels much more like a little more defensive.

Same Ole Me with a hand on a shine Same Ole Me and this old guitar A little bit like, hey, this is who I am, deal with it man.

Like I’m gonna drink a beer, it’s what it is.

I have a little bit more role than rock.

I was like, man, that resonates.

I think those two songs, they have a similar message, but no one’s still the same as they were.

We all change, which I think is this conflict, right?

We want to feel like we’re the same people we always have been.

But you know, I wasn’t a parent 20 years ago, but I knew my wife.

And I didn’t know my wife 25 years ago, but I’m still me.

There’s a lot of things that have changed that make me who I am today.

Some of the things I like, some of the things I don’t like, some of the things I’d like to change, some of the things I’d like to stay the same.

And I think that we find comfort in something that’s familiar.

And I think that’s what these songs are getting at.

Yeah, I’m glad you pointed me to Paul Overstreet as the songwriter to the George Jones, Same Ole Me, because he wrote so many of those Randy Travis bangers that I love.

I had no idea.

So that’s the common thread.

And this song was one of his earliest hit songs as a songwriter.

So he was young writing for George Jones.

Old George Jones, too.

Old George Jones, which is just really interesting to me that he can tap into that as a storyteller.

Yeah, and what was really interesting about it, I think, look, I love George Jones.

I do, and I feel like I have to say that out loud before I say what I’m about to say.

And I know what I’m about to say sacrilegious, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Old George Jones is a little bit too pissed off for me.

It’s a little too defensive.

It’s a little bit like, don’t you know who I am?

Get off my yard.

These young kids are trying to get rid of me.

I’m not going anywhere.

I don’t need your rocking chair.

Who’s going to fill your shoes?

George, come on, man.

You’re the best.

You open your mouth and out comes the greatest country music singer of all time.

Even in his older age, even when he was lit up like a Christmas tree, he was the best.

And this nuanced, not so nuanced, actually, kind of aggressive, defensive mechanism that he took up in his later years, I think diminished a little bit of it.

And he had great songs that came out in his later years, including Same Ole Me.

But the more defensive George Jones that I hear with that older voice sometimes makes me feel like he’s not telling just the story, that he’s telling what should be the story.

And that sometimes is distracting to my very careful listening of a song.

Like I did for These, you hear it in there that he’s like, you know, this is a song that really should be on the radio in 1982.

And it was, it was a top 10 hit.

But you know, it probably wouldn’t have been five or six years later.

What I think about with this song is not so much the actual subject matter in the song.

It is a love song about that’s the one thing that’s not going to change.

I’m always going to love you the same way.

To me, it’s when George Jones sings it, he is coming to this song with all of the baggage that he has.

And I wonder which me he is talking about that’s the same.

This is before he got sober, so he is still doing his up and down into the throes of addiction and destructive behavior and then rehab and coming back out of it and recording more music and trying to keep his career together.

It makes me wonder when he is the one singing this, like which me is he talking about?

Is that destructive self that is there and then his new wife who we met in the 80s, Nancy Jones, who ended up helping him to get sober later on in the late 90s, is this a message to her that this is who I am and you are going to have to love that part of me also, even the destructive crazy part?

Or is it a reassurance that the good person me, the original me is still in there and that’s the one that’s going to carry through?

There’s one line in the Dierks Bentley song, in the chorus, where he says what you get is going to be what you see.

And so I think that’s the message that I gravitate towards in both of the songs, that when they’re talking to their significant other, it’s this is who I am and that’s not going to change.

I can change some little things about it, but at the end of the day, this is me.

It almost gives me the same vibes that an early Aldine song, Don’t Give Up On Me, gave to me.

I know I might be stepping on a landmine here, mentioning Aldine in the very first podcast with you Donnie, but I’m going to do it anyway because that’s the song that popped into my head.

But it’s got a similar thing like I’m not perfect and here it is, I’m putting it out there.

I will agree with you that Jason Aldean is not perfect.

We’ll leave it there for now.

Well said.

I think, interestingly, the songwriters involved in both of these songs are prolific.

And I think that it speaks to the power of themes within country music.

You have this very powerful theme of humanity and people and their stories that they tell.

And in this, it’s really about the people, who you are, who you’ve been, who you’ve always been, who you want to be, these aspirational concepts.

But a little bit more honesty.

You have this, this is who I am.

And if you want me to change, it isn’t going to happen.

That’s the kind of the negative side and I think kind of the Dierks Bentley message.

And George Jones’ song is much more rounded.

It’s about, we’re older, we’re grayer, we still have that blue sparkle in our eyes, right?

There’s something very romantic about that.

And I think that when you start thinking about it, from a love song perspective, versus a, and just deal with the perspective, which I think is what the Bentley song is much more about, the George Jones song is romantic in all sorts of ways.

It romanticizes a love that lasts forever, because look, I don’t think anybody who’s been married for decades is going to say, oh, it’s the same as it was when we were 20.

We’re out until two o’clock in the morning, and boy, it’s exciting.

You’re putting away dishes and folding laundry and keeping the house going regardless of children.

You throw on kids.

That is a good point, because that’s something that Kim and I hang our hat on, is that since we met in high school, we’ve both changed a ton since then.

Going to school, getting our first jobs, now having kids.

It is crazy how much we’ve each changed.

The constant is that we love sharing our life together.

When we sit back at one of our family summits and talk about that fact, that we still at least connect on that deep level and have the same types of goals for our family after so many things have changed in our own individual lives, is just something that we’re proud of.

That, I think, is what really brings this whole thing together, right?

Is that growth that you can have is different from change.

It’s nuanced, but it’s important.

You’re not going to be the same person.

Over time, things change.

You have better experience.

It’s all those things.

And when I met Abby, like I was a 22-year-old bozo, and now I’m a much older bozo.

The things that you can do together is what makes it interesting.

If you didn’t change, you wouldn’t do anything.

And I think that’s what makes it interesting and takes out the romantic vision and makes it a much more real vision.

And in the end, that’s a much better love, is that your real love is something that can grow and change.

You can be honest with that person and find balance in a way that is not going to fit in a three-and-a-half-minute song.

Like, that’s the thing.

And I think, look, I like the Dierks Bentley song a lot.

I think it’s a lot of fun.

But I don’t think that it dives as deeply into the relationships as the Jones song does.

And this is much more about the music and where it was made and when it was made.

When you look at an early 80s country song that is reminiscent of the height of the national sound in the 60s and 70s, because that’s really what that song sounds like with an older person doing it.

And you look at the Dierks Bentley song, which was in 2023, and you look at the contemporary music that was taking place around it, they fit very well into those time periods, where the 2023 song was very much like a, you know, I’m a slightly older person now than I was when I first started this, but I’m still a fun kind of guy who hangs out with the cool kids in Country Music, which is cool alternative-ish kids in pop country music, because that’s where Dierks finds himself, right?

He’s right in the middle of that, definitely mainstream, but still a little bit more, I hate to use the word, authentic country.

He’s firmly in the bro country category, but a little more…

There’s more substance to him.

Traditional country, and yeah, a little more clever writing and…

Yeah, his writing is good.

And these guys are, John Randall and Luke Dick are incredible writers.

John Randall was the third named partner in the Marfa tapes that he put out with Miranda Lambert.

And so that’s something else.

The album is a brilliant piece of Texas country music.

And Dierks put out a very traditional kind of rocking version of a bluegrass album in 2010 too.

So he has a little bit more of this.

He’s grounded.

These two songs, however, taken outside of all of that context fit perfectly into their time periods, as do the themes of change, love and relationship as well.

There’s a wave of expectations that change in each of these generations.

And I think it resonates.

I think it comes clearly across in the songwriting and the presentation of the songs.

When we’re talking about self-improvement and making changes, is there a message that we can give to our kids about turning the new year over and improving oneself?

Yeah, definitely do everything I tell you.

That’ll help out a lot.

That’s right.

Yeah, I think, look, I think self-improvement is about self-acceptance.

It’s not an either or type of a situation.

You need to understand your limitations.

I’m not going to go win the New York City Marathon ever.

I never would be able to do that.

But I ran it once.

It was hard work and I’m glad I did it.

It’s something that I can check off my list.

I don’t need to be a marathon runner anymore.

But I want to run some more.

I’d like to do that again because I liked it.

And it’s something that I know that is part of me.

I knew that it helped me be healthier.

And I’m older now and I have family history of health issues and I should be aware of those things.

And so, you know, there are things that I’m aware of that I need to improve to enhance my life.

When you have strong willed children like I do, which is a very nice way of saying they’re sometimes a little difficult, that they need to understand what’s not okay with their actions and how they feel about themselves, because sometimes that’s part of it, right, is that they don’t feel comfortable doing the things they did and then they act out about them.

I think that’s important because when you think about how you can make the kids be their best selves, they have to do it, you can’t do it for them as much as you want to, you gotta let your kids live their lives.

No matter how much you push them in the right direction or help them see what’s right, they gotta figure it out.

And if you’re honest with yourself in front of them, I think there’s a lot of value in that for their experience.

Hearing you say you failed and how you fixed it is good.

Absolutely.

I always want them to see what I am trying to improve in myself.

When I went to my at-home dad convention and I go to every year, my oldest asked why I was going to that.

And I said, it’s because I want to be a better dad.

I think I can learn from the other dads.

I can learn from the materials there and that’s why I’m going away.

I think that I could do better at being your dad.

Whenever I catch myself yelling at them, I always go back and apologize to them because I think it’s a powerful thing to say like I’m not perfect and there’s things that I want to try to improve and hopefully they can see that and take that lesson upon themselves that hey, they’re going to make mistakes, they’re going to wrestle with things and that’s fine, that’s okay.

And hopefully we can wrestle with things side by side.

But it is important how you talk about it.

You don’t want to lead with I’m a disgusting slob who has no habits and just put yourself down.

There is kind of a balance.

There is a Bluey episode that came under some fire.

It was called Exercise.

It was in season three and it caught my attention because Bluey is kind of seen as this universal, like the perfect parenting show.

But they put a scene in this episode about Exercise that caught the eye of lots of people.

And in the scene, Bandit looks at himself in the mirror and taps his belly and says, Uh-oh, something needs to change.

And then he goes out in the rest of the episodes about how he’s trying to exercise while his kids are climbing all over him, which is something that I can relate with.

But that first scene, they actually cut from the episode completely because the message it was sending is that because of how he looks or because of the number on the scale, that’s what’s not good.

They kept the best part of the episode.

He’s not going to sacrifice things that are important to him and to his health to play with his kids.

He’s going to get that done and his kids are going to see that.

And it might not be the perfect workout, but he’s there trying to improve himself.

Yeah, it’s constant.

You can’t give up on improving.

And I don’t think that makes sense.

I’m just going to stop doing everything for my kids.

That, I think that mentality leads to a lot of problems for adults, I think it leads to problems for relationships.

And we’re forced to do it a lot, no matter what, be it professional or a passion project or whatever.

You can’t give up the stuff that’s important to you.

And you also need some time for yourself to figure that all out.

And you got to figure out how to do that.

And that’s a luxury.

I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

There are some situations in which you can’t do that because you’re stuck financially, you’re stuck professionally, and you’re stuck personally, where, you know, you have to do stuff that takes away from your own personal experience.

And that is detrimental to you and your kids.

And that’s why the luxury aspect of this is why people value it.

It’s important and it enhances the lives of the people you’re engaged with, no matter what type of relationship it is.

So as we look forward to season two, Donnie, what is it that you’re looking forward to for the podcast?

Well, I’m definitely looking forward to being able to talk about all sorts of good country music and also talk about it in a parenting context.

As we discussed, I write a lot of stuff for country music and most of it does not have to do with parenting.

I have two kids and they take up most of my time.

So most of my experiences have to do with children.

And I find writing a good way to deal with all of it.

And we have been in talks about this for a while.

I’m really excited to say that Country Music Dads will be having a newsletter that we’ll be sending out to folks.

We’ll be writing about country music.

We’ll be talking about parenting trends.

We’ll be talking about that little piece of news that came out not so long ago that says the kids shouldn’t ever wear jeans.

My oldest is definitely on board with that.

He will never wear what we call hard pants.

I can’t wait to talk about that one either, because I don’t want to wear jeans or hard pants either.

Because it’s becoming less and less possible each time I try to put them on.

More to come on that topic.

But yes, thank you for mentioning the newsletter.

Very excited about that.

And yes, the plan is to have the same types of topics and debates and discussions that we have on the podcast showing up in the newsletter.

Same old stuff, different format.

Maybe something new.

Yes.

We do have a recurring segment that we’re keeping in the show.

We call it the Dad Life Sound Check, where we share some song that’s speaking to us in our parenting journey.

Donnie, what song is speaking to you at this moment?

This song speaks to me a lot, actually.

So it’s Night Time Eagle by Jeremy Pinnell.

It’s off of Goodbye LA, an album he put out in 2021.

And while I don’t know if the first few lines of it will scream parenting, there is a line in there.

And the conversation is mostly with the singers.

It’s out on the road, he’s a singer, he loves the honky tonk styles, he loves being out there playing music with his band.

He loves those big girls in Bakersfield and the pedal steel and all of these things that are country as all get out.

But he misses his wife and kids at home.

And the entire thing feels like you’re being pulled in two different directions, right?

So yeah, I want to go out there and make people dance, but I also just want to be at home with my family.

When we talk about the importance of going and doing the things that are important to you, be it engaging with other parents who are going through similar things, going out to concerts that seem completely superfluous to your life, which I do pretty regularly.

I try to go out two to three times a week to see music in Los Angeles or travel to go see music.

It’s important to me.

It gives me a lot of life and gives me a lot of enjoyment.

It makes me very excited and I love doing it.

But I also feel pretty guilty doing it.

I miss bedtime every once in a while because of it.

And my oldest takes a long time to go to sleep.

It’s a big part of the process.

I tell him a story every night and I have for the last eight and a half years.

I can count on one hand the times that I haven’t done that when I’ve been at home.

But I can’t count how many times I’ve not been at home because of going out to see a show.

And while I know he understands this, I also feel pulled.

I feel guilty about it.

And I think that this song does a really great job of balancing those two dynamics, right?

This, I love being on the road.

I love playing music.

It’s what I’m passionate about.

But I miss my wife and kids.

I want to go home.

I don’t want to talk on the phone with you.

I just want to go home.

Yeah, I could definitely feel that tension.

We’re lucky enough that both our parents are in town and our kids love staying with them and spending time with them.

They love spending weekends with my parents.

And we love handing them over for weekends.

But inevitably, as excited as I am for those weekends, when they come up, as soon as they’re gone, I miss them.

It feels cheesy to say it, but I actually do.

I’m like, I love spending time with my kids.

So when I ship them off, it’s, oh, no, I don’t have that right now.

What a bummer.

And then it goes away really quickly, at least for a second, I can get it.

One of those nights, I don’t know what a Night Time Eagle is, if that’s an actual creature.

But one of those nights when Kim and I went out and enjoyed ourselves at a show, we came home and I thought I was hallucinating because in the middle of the night, it was like 1230 in the morning, a bird was just walking around on the sidewalk as we were getting out of our car.

And I thought it was a dodo bird.

It just, I had never seen a bird like this before.

And it was just, it was walking in the middle of the night.

I don’t usually see birds at all at night and it was walking.

I found out it was, it’s a night heron.

I Googled it so that I could sleep that night.

And, but maybe that’s what Jeremy Pinnell is talking about.

Maybe he’s seen the night heron and it was cool.

It was chilling.

Jeremy Pinnell is one of my favorites.

His writing is engrossing.

And this song and this whole album is just brilliant, as are his others that are out.

But he pulls you in with these stories that feel incredibly real.

So yeah, I just like this song a lot.

And it speaks to me when I’m feeling torn.

My song is Halo by Joshua Ray Walker.

There’s a couple of reasons I picked this song.

One is Halo was originally a Beyoncé song.

And Beyoncé is the talk of the music and the country music world right now.

Her album, Cowboy Carter, cleaned up at the Grammys.

Everyone’s talking about Beyoncé.

She’s got a tour, the Cowboy Carter tour, that is starting up this year.

It’s a big topic that we’re not going to get into in this episode.

But Halo also happens to be my favorite Beyoncé song.

I’m not a huge Beyoncé person, so I don’t have a whole lot of her songs in recent memory.

But Halo takes me back to this time when it was a popular song on the radio, when she first released it.

That was the era when we didn’t have kids yet, and lots of people were getting married, so we were going to lots of weddings, and a lot of them were ragers.

And it was a really fun period of life.

And you’re talking about that tension between the I wish things were how they used to be, where we had a little bit less responsibilities, and we could just go out and have fun.

That’s what I think of when I hear Halo.

So when I saw that Joshua Ray Walker released this album, it’s called What Is It Even?

And it’s all covers of songs by female pop stars.

All these covers are very much country-fied.

And this version of Halo is, if you said, play Halo but make it as country as possible, that’s what you get with Joshua Ray Walker’s version of Halo.

And it is delightful and takes me back.

This album is absolutely bananas, too.

Like the whole thing is divas, too.

It’s not just women pop stars.

Like these are big songs.

Though the first single, I think, was Because I Love You by Lizzo and Joshua Ray Walker.

If you do it, it was, it’s humongous.

But Halo is probably one of the most ambitious songs that he took on.

I Want To Dance With You is also pretty wild, but Halo is huge.

It’s such a big song, and to take on a Beyonce song, you got to really deliver, and I think he does.

You take a look at when Joshua Ray Walker put this out, it was right before he got sick.

He had cancer, and it didn’t look good for a really long time, and it was a really bad diagnosis, and he beat it.

And he’s working on being healthier and doing all these things for himself to make himself better, to go back to our original theme.

But if you look at this set of songs and what they say and how big and pop, mostly positive they are, you compare that to his first few albums, which are some of the darkest country music you’ve ever listened to.

And then his kind of realization that he might die album, or EP rather, which was Thanks For Listening.

You just get a real picture of someone who does change a lot over time and his ability to bring sound to these concepts and feelings and bring voice to his inner, most darkest thoughts, as well as embodying these gigantic pop songs sung by some of the biggest names in music history.

It’s really something else.

Joshua Ray Walker is a special person.

I’m real glad that he’s okay.

And also this album is just bonkers.

You don’t need other words.

It’s just not.

Yeah, it is epic.

But Halo, I love Halo because it is epic.

And you’re right, he just, he takes it head on.

And he’s well enough to be on tour this year.

He’s coming to LA.

So yeah, he’s playing the echo.

And he’s also, I mean, here in the Dallas area, you can go see him pretty regularly.

He had a residency at the Kessler Theater, which is the smaller, real intimate venue in Dallas that hosted him for regular events to cover costs, essentially while he was sick.

They sold out every single time and he could play 10 songs.

Sometimes he could play full sets.

Sometimes he didn’t really sing that much, but he was there all the time and he sold out all the time.

The Dallas community really came to rally behind him, and as did a lot of the country music scene, because he’s an important voice.

He really is.

His ability to embody these different songs really goes to show the range that he has.

Like, some of his songs are gut wrenching, it’s just unreal.

Some of his songs are incredibly difficult to listen to, like, Canyon.

If you don’t know, Joshua Ray Rocker is a very large man, and that song is taking that head on, and being very honest with that pain.

Some of his more fun songs that he has are just much happier, but the deeper meanings behind them are also pretty dark.

I love Dumpster Diving.

Dumpster Diving is just clearly about people in poverty in a very low place, but finding some joy in the dark places.

Yeah.

The album Glad You Made It, if you ever need to feel deep darkness, I highly recommend listening to that on headphones.

It’s intense.

Changing Gears will touch on something a little bit lighter in a new segment that we call Change My Mind.

We’re really excited about this new segment because when you look around in the world, flexibility and opinion is often seen as weakness, but we want to model good behavior to our kids and our listeners, as we respectfully and humorously try to change each other’s mind about really important, pressing issues in country music, fatherhood, and other nonsense.

Dave, Bro Country is bad for country music.

It is bad for the genre.

It’s bad for listeners.

Dave, change my mind.

I would be happy to.

I’ll call myself a recovering Bro Country aficionado.

I think I am uniquely suited to make this argument to you, Donnie.

The main reason that I think that Bro Country was actually good for the genre, is that it helped to broaden the audience for Country Music.

It is a catchy, fun, gateway type version of Country Music.

That’s all about, yes, it’s all about partying and beer and trucks and girls.

But especially men of a certain age like to hear about that stuff.

It might be at a frat party.

But a lot of the people that are being introduced to Country Music through Bro Country and its successors are people that previously would be in the, I listen to everything, but Country crowd.

And I’d argue they still do.

That’s a good point.

Still, Country Music right now has never been more popular than it is right now.

And yes, you can argue about what qualifies to be called Country Music.

But a lot of Bro Country’s successors today, like Morgan Wallen, for instance, he is a Bro Country person and a star.

And he is the biggest star in Country Music right now.

He’s the king of the Bros.

I’ll give you that.

People love some Morgan Wallen, love him or hate him.

They show up to his shows.

They are driving listenership on the radio.

And these people, previously, they would say, I don’t listen to Country Music.

But maybe now, having been introduced to Country Music through Bro Country, they’ll say, you know what?

I do listen to Country Music.

Maybe I’ll give other forms.

of Country Music a try.

I was in that boat, okay?

When I was younger, in my bro-ier years.

The first time I heard Cruise, it was the pinnacle of Bro Country, Florida Georgia Line.

It is super catchy.

I still will put it on in certain contexts, maybe in the summer when you’re not around because it’d be too embarrassing.

But if a more beer-drinking crowd that’s not too particular about their type of country music, some of the words are a little cringy now.

But that was my introduction where I had never heard anything like that before.

And once I started listening to FGL, I started layering in more traditional country music and considering that I’m not just somebody that dabbles in country music, I’m a country music fan.

So what do country music fans do?

They listen to country music all the time.

And my palate and my tastes have become refined over time.

Or I can’t really handle to Luke Bryan stuff anymore.

I can’t really handle FGL anymore.

I’ve become a man and I’ve put away childish things like Bro Country.

Now because of that, I have a more refined taste and a better appreciation of country music history and I think a better taste in music in general.

But it all started with Bro Country.

The audience is so much bigger and broader.

There’s something for everyone.

That’s only going to be good for the rest of the more traditional sounds that are getting a lot of play.

Your Charlie Crockett’s and Sierra Forel’s.

The saying is what rising tides of bros raise all boats.

And that’s why I think that Bro Country is actually good for the genre.

You make points.

I will push back on a couple of things.

I will admit something and I’ll tell you a secret.

Number one, I will start with My Secret.

I like Crazed.

It’s a good song.

Yes.

I hate that I like that song.

But it’s too damn catchy, Red.

I hate that I like that song.

It’s irresistible.

Yeah.

But just eating those dipping sticks in the sugar are really tasty.

But then you feel like you need to brush your teeth with sandpaper.

That’s how I feel about Bro Country Music most of the time.

There is the occasional time where that just hits right, and it’s fun, and it’s easy.

But the vapidity, I don’t even know if that’s the right word.

It’s vapid, man.

There’s nothing there.

That to me has always been a problem with pop music.

There’s only so many hours in the day.

And I listen to music most of the time that I’m not on a phone call or talking to my kids or doing something that needs to be done in silence.

I’m listening to music, and I don’t like the empty calories of broke country.

And to me, it’s a whole bunch of beer and trucks and girls where you can tell good stories about those things, and you can elevate it.

And there are a number of artists who do.

I think Ernest is a really good example.

We went and saw his show in LA.

It was fun.

It was a good show.

He’s a good songwriter.

But the other guys that are out there, it’s not good.

It’s not even smart.

It’s not even clever.

I think you used the right word, vapidity, lacking meaning or intelligence.

You nailed it.

It’s rough, man.

The broke country successors cruise and beyond.

There’s a lot of copycats because it was so successful, they made so much money.

Let’s go and repeat this.

At a certain point, you can’t handle that much sugary goodness.

Yeah.

But I would say that there is a time and place for maybe putting aside a refined art form.

Like if you go to the movies, there’s a time when a purely escapist superhero movie is what you want.

You want big explosions.

You don’t care if it really makes sense or if the dialogue is good.

You want to see the surface level entertainment.

Yeah.

I would put Bro Country in that category.

For sure.

There’s this great comic bit from a long time ago by Eddie Izzard, where the comedian’s saying, British dramas are not cinematic excitement.

You go into it, they’re like, I’ll polish the silver.

You’re trying to eat your popcorn, but you’re not going to eat my popcorn.

I polish the silver again.

But American cinema, now that’s great.

Boom, kavaing, huge explosions.

I’m going to kill you.

I eat the popcorn really fast.

You need that popcorn eating experience sometimes.

Bro Country has a place.

There’s no doubt about it.

But personally, I’m not going to listen to it.

If it comes on and it’s not something I’m going to turn off, that’s how I feel about Ernest.

I’m not going to turn his stuff off if I’m listening to the radio.

But I am going to turn off Morgan Wal-Mart because he sucks.

And I think his music is really bad.

If you like it, that’s fine.

I’m not going to get in a fight with you about it.

But his music is objectively, it’s catchy, but it’s objectively not good.

You can critically take that apart and say, these are the five reasons this isn’t very good.

And a lot of it has to do with the 50 different people who wrote the song.

A lot of it has to do with it being formulaic.

And a lot of it has to do with it being a product as opposed to a piece of art.

In the creation of Country Music, this concept of authenticity was manufactured.

This book right here, Creating Country Music, The Fabrication of Authenticity by Richard Peterson.

I highly recommend this book because it kind of blows your mind, right?

We think about Country Music as something that’s been around forever.

But the reality is it was formed in the 1920s and it was pretty much codified in the 50s.

And that’s not that long ago when you’re thinking about something that feels extremely old and has always been the same old thing.

Country Music is pretty new and it was created intentionally to do the things that bro country does.

And so even the other stuff that’s more authentic, quote unquote, authentic, is just as manufactured and created.

So I’m not saying that bro country is an authentic country music.

I’m not saying that at all.

It’s just not what I like.

And I know that some people like it and that’s fine.

For me, I don’t like it.

You didn’t change my mind.

I respect the fact that it exists and it is something that can bring people in.

It won’t bring me in.

Well, thankfully you’re already here.

I’m already here.

So it’s not for you.

Yeah, it’s just not for me, but it’s not any more or less authentic to people who do like it than what I like.

I hope people expand their horizons because you shouldn’t just eat Dippin Dots.

You need to have some ice cream, maybe some gelato, a sorbet.

It’s not just those really freeze-dried, somewhat tasty, milky, sweet things that you get at amusement parks like Morgan-Wallon.

Yeah, we’ll say it.

Any Morgan-Wallon stuff that I’ve given a thumbs up to on Spotify, it’s all the early stuff because it’s gotten worse.

Plus, all the early stuff, that was all written by Hardy, my favorite.

Wow, we got them in.

I’m happy about that.

I was missing Hardy.

Yeah, right.

Thank God.

I think that wraps up episode one of season two.

Thank you all for listening and sticking with us here.

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, this is new.

Please subscribe to our newsletter at countrymusictads.substack.com.

You can find everything we do on our website countrymusictads.com, and we’d love to hear what you think.

So send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram at countrymusictads or via email countrymusictadsatgmail.com.

Stay tuned to our next episode when we are inspired by Ludacris, and we will explore which of our favorite children’s books would make for great country music songs.

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

We’ll talk to you soon.

Do you want to go with y’all, or is that too forced?

Is that authentic enough?

I know, we’ll see what comes out of it.

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