Kelsea Ballerini & Carly Pearce: Can You *Have It All* in Country Music?

First off, thanks for all of you who joined me last week in the CMA chat post. Some of you gave the excellent feedback that you think we should consider a DRTI Discord - curious to hear what more of you think (Discord? Right here on the newsletter? Reddit? Whatever?) works best for these sorts of live chats. If you want to see more of what I had to say about all things CMA Awards, I joined Joe Hudak over on his Rolling Stone Nashville Now podcast, which you can watch here! We had fun and talked some shit. Brooks & Dunn superfans, please be nice to me!! I hope they are not as scary as Carrie Underwood fans because otherwise I am fucked.

Anyway, now that we're through CMA mayhem here in Nashville (which is not really mayhem for me, I just watch that shit from my couch) I want to talk about two new songs from two excellent artists that explore similar themes: Kelsea Ballerini and Carly Pearce. I've written about both of these artists here on the newsletter, who approach country music with very singular and very different point of views - which is why I found it incredibly interesting that they both launched their new eras of music with singles that explore the idea of "having it all" as a general farce, in a genre that often places traditional roles on women while preferring that the powerful, successful women either choose a forever childfree life or kitchen-bound domesticity. Even more important, both songs explore all of this in the context of happiness - because in the world we live in, women's happiness is a sometimes radical thought.

First off, Ballerini's "I Sit In Parks":

A solo write by Ballerini, it's told from the point of view of a single woman in her thirties, sitting in neighborhood parks and watching the life she doesn't have unfold in front of her: mothers playing with their children, families gathering, slathering on sunscreen and doing all the things we assume would be much more boring than headlining shows at Madison Square Garden and such. Ballerini has always been such a candid writer, able to drop mentions of antidepressants and her struggles with mental health in her her songs in a way that feel natural and not forced, and "I Sit In Parks" tells a world of pain and heartache about something other than romance in well under three minutes:

So I sit in parks, sunglasses dark
And I hit the vape, hallucinate a nursery with Noah's Ark

They lay on a blanket, and god dammit, he loves her
I wonder if she wants my freedom like I wanna be a mother

That last line hit me hard: yes, Ballerini. We do. I'm a working mother of two kids, and I do dream about that freedom. Not for a life without my kids of course - but for a life where I could much more easily have all the things I desire (career, family, ability to have any rest time and freedom amongst that all) just as she wishes that it were easier and more accessible to have fame and skyrocketing success while becoming a mother.

I spend a lot of time here (and here and here and...ok, you get it) thinking and writing about how women navigate the role of mother in the music industry, and in country music, there's the added layer of how domesticity is built into the fiber of the genre. I love to see someone as visible as Ballerini openly hashing out how it's often pretty impossible to have it all - and within that, comes a rejection of the roles that the genre often places on its women who choose to have families. It's an unraveling, which I especially appreciate as some artists are even leaning tradwife as part of their public branding.

And here's Pearce's, "Dream Come True":

Pearce is coming from a similar place: reaching the top of the mountain, and wondering if what you were climbing away from is everything you actually wanted.

Dream come true
Bought me a house at the end of a cul-de-sac
Four bedrooms
But I only use one

Pearce, like Ballerini, is meditating on how success and fame come with serious costs for women - and ends on the most heartbreaking note, when she thinks about what her own mother had to give up to make her daughter's dreams come true. Pearce knows there are layers of sacrifice for a career like this: often generations of it. She's learned it might bring awards and wealth, but it doesn't always bring companionship or happiness.

Men in country music are not writing songs about what they had to give up for success - of course they aren't, because they are allowed to have all the things they want as part of the package, part of the branding. Hell, FatherCountry (had to call it that not to be confused with Dad Country), with a perfect Country Wife (who maybe sometimes peddles conspiracy theory-driven health remedies or hair extensions) is a part of it all. Side note: how many of you working mothers have watched All Her Fault? If not, fix that shit now!

I love this direction for mainstream country music - beyond just writing about love, beyond just writing about breakups or divorce or drinking and tailgates. I hope the questions these women are asking reverberate far and wide. Because you can't have it all in country music, if you count happiness and contentment as part of the "all." Or this country, for that matter. Even if we pretend you can.