Guest Ranter, My Brother David, on the Music Industry, Drugs, and Alcohol

My Rant Against the Music Industry
by David Miller

Have you ever wondered why there is a multi-billion dollar industry in this country built around addiction to drugs and alcohol?  

I didn't until I took three or four trips driving across this beautiful land of ours to visit and ultimately say good-bye to our mother.  It didn’t really sink in until I took the trip with my alcoholic teenage daughter.  When I drive I listen to music and when I drive 10-15 hours a day on a road trip I listen to a LOT of music, and typically multiple genres of music.  When I took the trip alone I found myself changing stations quite often as I went from one metropolitan area to the next and got tired of country and moved to pop or hard rock or classic rock or sometimes even rap or dance stations.  

When I took the trip with Mikayla so close to her latest bout with alcohol I found myself more than a little uncomfortable when different bands or artists would glorify the use of alcohol or marijuana, and I would try to quickly change the station.  By about the third hour my arm was about to start cramping up and my shoulder began to ache.  If you think I’m exaggerating try it sometime.  Here’s a little sequence of songs or genres I tried to avoid and the lyrics or phrases that I was trying to escape.  If you decide to try it I bet you can’t go more than 30 minutes without a song that will tell you why you need to, or should feel justified, in losing yourself or soothing yourself in some kind of drug or alcohol.

Kayla likes pop/dance/teeny bopper music (imagine that) so we started on that type of station.  This is all music that I have listened to with half an ear with Becca [age 4] in the car hundreds of times and never really thought about it.  But when you’re sitting in a car with someone you really don’t like very much at the time and aren’t spending a lot of time trying to discuss the meaning of life or politics you tend to pay a little more attention to the lyrics.  

We were no more than 10-15 minutes into the trip and Kesha had brushed her teeth with a bottle of Jack and gone out with her gang of friends for a night of debauchery that lasted until the sun came up. Katy Perry was worried that most of what she did the night before was illegal but she really couldn’t remember due to all the empty bottles strewn around her yard and in her pool and she really hoped none of the pictures hit the internet or she was really “screwed”, and I found that Nicki Menaj really likes shots of Patron.  

I tried switching to a hard rock station and found that these artists really like the harder drugs like cocaine, heroin, and of course you gotta have some Jack, Jim or Johnny to chase it with.   The rappers like their gin and juice and Patron tequila and usually chase that with a very expensive bottle of champagne and a blunt or bowl is always a good idea.  

Think country’s any better?  Think again.  Kenny Chesney has an entire song about how it’s totally acceptable to use moonshine or tequila to escape from reality, Toby Keith has his red solo cup that he likes to party with and everybody knows how much he likes to get high with Willie because he wrote a song about it.  The Zack Brown Band likes to drink beer with their toes in the sand and roll a big fat one and play, George Strait says to hell with the red wine and bring on some moonshine, and Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffet say “it’s five o’clock somewhere so make it a hurricane before I go insane”.  And let’s not forget newcomer Jerrod Niemann wants to know what’s wrong with “Another Drinkin’ Song”.

Now don’t get me wrong!  I’m not hypocrite enough to say that I’m never going to drink again because of the damage all these songs have done to my daughter.  Ultimately our decisions are just that: OUR decisions.  I really like a lot of these and the many other artists that write about how socially acceptable it is to go out and get shit-faced, or high as a kite, or both, whenever you have a bad day at work, get dumped by your significant other, feel a little down or really want to have a good time.  

But is it really any wonder that a lot of our kids are very curious about what’s so fun about these many different ways to feel better, and completely fearless in regard to the possible consequences?  I think not, but there is one thing that has changed I can assure you.  I will always be a little more conscientious about what I’m listening to when Becca’s in the car, and she and I will have a lot of conversations about consequences at a much younger age than Mikayla and I ever did.  I can only hope that it will help her make better decisions as she starts to feel the pressure to fit in and be cool.  

Because the big thing that all the rock stars forget to tell you in the song is if you don’t have millions of dollars for attorneys and fines you may very well find your ass in a whole lot of trouble when you do the things they so love to glorify and celebrate.