Without your glasses you just plain can’t see
Your favorite color for the most part is green
You’re close to your grandma on your mother’s side
You can count up on one hand the times you have lied

You won’t eat a tomato on a double-dog dare
You don’t think you’re a beauty but you do like your hair
Your complex and tricky, yet someways you’re not
You’re up some, you’re down some
You’re cold and you’re hot

And who’s gonna end up holdin’ your hand-
A beautiful woman or a tall, handsome man?
There’s no doubt they’ll love you, but it’s yet to be seen:
Will anyone ever know you like me?

You like plantin’ flowers, that’s heaven to you
Crack open a beer when you’re planting through
You’ll paint all your toenails if you have time,
while listening to Willie, Dylan and Pride

CHORUS

You’d rather make-out then make love all night
You like if your bath is too hot
Your closet is cluttered with dress pants and Levis that you wish you’d never bought

Regarding the lyrics to “Like Me” – Leann – “a close friend”? REALLY?? It may be uncomfortable to write but lover, partner, girlfriend, significant other is far more accurate.

That being said…Thank Chely for getting me to pay attention to country music again. Since country stations stopped playing the Dixie Chicks on the radio – I stopped listen to country music radio.

I sure wish I could take one of your classes.

Are you teaching the country music class this summer?

Yes, please come back and let us know what your class makes of Chely’s lyrics.

My literature students will often imbue a poem or story (or song–we discuss songs at length, since they ARE poetry set to music) with meanings that aren’t there, or are at least tenuous. I always ask students, “Where is ________ is the lyrics? Show me. Where are the specific words that make you think it’s about _________?” Often, students can’t explain when I ask them for primary-source support for their positions. We may well do the same thing with these lines:
You’re complex and tricky
Yet some ways you’re not
You’re up some and down some
You’re cold and you’re hot
Who’s gonna end up holding your hand?
A beautiful woman or a tall handsome man? . . . Will anyone ever know you like me?

I’m not a lesbian, yet these lyrics could certainly apply to me (had I written them). True, Chely Wright came out around the time she released the album. True, artists put SO much of themselves and their struggles into their music. But, as I ask my students: Can you see beyond the simple, surface interpretation of the words? Had we seen these lyrics and NOT known Wright wrote them, what might we say THEN? Take a look at the following poem, and then tell us what you think it might be about. (Sorry about the funky formatting!)

For that I never knew you, I only learned to dread you,
for that I never touched you, they told me you are filth,
they showed me by every action to despise your kind;
for that I saw my people making war on you,
I could not tell you apart, one from another,
for that in childhood I lived in places clear of you,
for that all the people I knew met you by
crushing you, stamping you to death, they poured boiling
water on you, they flushed you down,
for that I could not tell one from another
only that you were dark, fast on your feet, and slender.
Not like me.
For that I did not know your poems
And that I do not know any of your sayings
And that I cannot speak or read your language
And that I do not sing your songs
And that I do not teach our children
to eat your food
or know your poems
or sing your songs
But that we say you are filthing our food
But that we know you not at all.

Today I touched one of you for the first time.
You were startled, you ran, you fled away
Fast as a dancer, light, strange and lovely to the touch.
I reach, I touch, I begin to know you.

What/who is this about? What’s the situation? Where do you get those clues that support your position?

Still thinking?

Okay. It’s by Muriel Rukeyser (20th-century American poet).

The title is…………

(are you ready?)……
…………….
…………….
…………….

“St. Roach.”

Sometimes it’s hard to separate artist and art. Sometimes it’s hard to separate an artist’s stated intention from what we, some time later, end up seeing in her/his art. When we don’t remember that we MUST make these distinctions in order to remain well-informed and honest readers/critics, we commit a Deadly Sin of Readership: reducing artists to just a label or phrase, which removes both their humanity AND the power of their work.

Having said all this, I’m going to try an experiment with my lit students with Wright’s lyrics. First day of class is June 14. I’ll let you know how it goes.

True, she never sings “I’m a lesbian,” but c’mon, good songwriters aren’t ham-handed like that — there’s subtlety and beauty in their craft. Her sexual orientation is a part of who she is, and it imbues what she does, consciously or not.

As such, I think it was probably better to leave it out of the review in the sense that it could potentially overshadow the impressive quality of the music, much of which (as stated numerous times) makes no reference to Chely’s sexual orientation. Nevertheless, I totally see your side.